Halo Chronicles: Seventh Son
by PezDispens3r
Summary: The UNSC Seventh Son, a Marathon-class Cruiser recently released from dry-dock, finds itself upon a covenant fleet, and an opportunity that could prove instrumental in giving the UNSC the edge in this war. The first installment in what I plan to be a long series of stories of mild relation, taking place during the Human-Covenant War. Ratings and reviews are greatly appreciated.
1. Chapter 1

_**Chapter 1**_

* * *

Everything felt…. light, like he was floating, he turned his head to the left to see if he was in water, but all he could see around him was total darkness. Suddenly out of the darkness came the outline of a small house as color started to return to the scenery around him, like the side effects of a camera flash. He looked down at his chest, his dress whites on, the buttons polished, the fabric completely crease-free, and the rectangular name tag reading "Strieger" glistening in the strange light.

"Where the hell am I?"

"You're home," a calm female voice rang out from the fading blackness, a voice Strieger recognized all too well.

Stepping out of the building daintily came a small old woman as the colors slowly returned to his surroundings, her eyes green, and her hair chalk white and folded into a bun, she stood there in a blue apron and smiled at him, her laugh wrinkles and dimples prominently visible. As Strieger viewed his surroundings again, they were now clearly recognizable. The house was a quaint wraparound porch, lying on a small hill, in the distance you could see the towering skyscrapers of Pilvros City off in the distance. It was his home, but it was impossible, it had been years since he had returned to New Carthage, and even longer since he last saw his childhood home.

"Mom? How did I get here? I was just on Skopje for ship leave."

 _"I missed you too Mom, gosh it's been 3 years and I haven't written in 2"_ She said in a mocking tone of voice, a playful smirk crossing her face, "what will I ever do with you Alec? Off making your father proud and the galaxy a safer place for everyone."

Alec looked down slightly, remembering his father's stern face and bushy mustache. Admiral George Strieger was a sort of hometown hero on New Carthage, he had fought against the Insurrectionists before humanity had discovered the Covenant, served in the fleet that fought the 2nd battle of Harvest that retook the planet, and led the evacuations of dozens of outer colonies. He was a firm and overbearing career soldier. As much as Alec missed him, his legacy left a heavy weight on his conscience. Looking down at his captain's epaulets, he knew that he never really earned his position, sure he had done well throughout Officer Candidate school and was ranked third highest in a class of 500 students, every last one of them being some of the finest prospective officers the human race had to offer, but he had gone from an Ensign to a Captain of his own ship in less than a year. He knew this was his father's legacy at work, and everyone expecting perfection from him was extremely nauseating, though he never had the courage to tell his mother that. He moved his lips to respond but no noise left his mouth, followed by a loud banging noise inside his skull.

Strieger sat up, a cold sweat running down his spine as he looked around him. He was in his apartment, his uniform hung up on the closet door and 2 empty bottles of whiskey sitting on the table by the door, a half full glass sitting next to them. He leaned forward and stared for a moment into his own lap, rubbing his eyes with his palms, his skull ringing with an intense hangover. Another series of loud knocks echoed from the door as he rose to his feet, taking a moment to inhale a deep breath through his nostrils and walked to the door, grabbing the glass on his way there, the electronic seal sliding open with a press of a button, revealing a young blonde woman in UNSC Navy garb, a file in her hands. Strieger must have been quite the sight to her; he was unshaven, his military issue haircut beginning to grow unkempt, and he wore an alcohol stained and wrinkled green tank top and PT shorts. He leaned onto the doorframe with his right arm to balance himself as he took a sip from the glass in his left.

"Uhmmm… Captain Alec Strieger?" The woman inquired with a thick Finnish accent.

Alec smiled and shrugged, "am I not what you expected ensign?"

"It's not my place to judge sir, I have a message for you, it's directly from HIGHCOM, it seems that they have something high priority for your crew," she held out the file, which he took and flipped open with his right hand after removing it from the doorframe.

"They want me to escort an admiral to Reach?! I just received my commission yesterday, I don't even have a ship, or a crew yet, and they want us launched in 3 hours?"

"You do now captain," she clicked her heels together and snapped into a crisp salute "Petty Officer Freja Karlsson, I've been assigned as your new helmsman."

Strieger chuckled as he took another sip, "thank god, I was worried you might be my weapons officer."

"Do I look that unstable sir?" She said with sarcastic overtones, her doey blue eyes giving him the puppy dog treatment.

"Only slightly," With that he chugged down the rest of the glass, "give me a moment to get dressed for success and we'll make our way to dry dock."

A few minutes later both Karlsson and Strieger were walking through the streets of New Thessaloniki, Strieger's face freshly shaven and his hair trimmed short. His dress white uniform now folded inside a small duffel bag, he wore his service uniform consisting of a double-breasted olive drab tunic, bearing the seal of the United Nations Space Command Defense Force, with his surname printed above the seal. He wore matching trousers, a pistol belt, and a cap also bearing the UNSCDF seal, just like Karlsson's uniform only with differing ranks. His Ship Emblem patch on the right shoulder was still nonexistent as he had yet to receive it from his new crew. The cyan blue sky glowed orange in the sunrise, the streets already packed with people and the sounds that came with them.

As they made their way towards the light-rail station, they were stopped many times by civilians thanking them for their service, which they politely thanked them but quickly resumed their pace towards the station. As they boarded the monorail, the overhead screens began blasting a triumphant drum roll, relaying images of Spartans fighting on Protev 3 against the covenant invasion force, followed by a number to call for recruitment opportunities.

"Seems those Spartans have brought hope back to the people." Karlsson spoke as she looked up at the viewscreen, her arms hands lightly gripping onto the overhead handle, causing her to sway slowly with the train. "Recruitment rates haven't been this high since we retook Harvest."

"Hmmph, is it hope, or is it that the civilian population is finally starting to realize that we're fighting an enemy that takes no prisoners, spares no civilians, and cares nothing of collateral, only genocide." Alec was about to continue until he noticed a small boy and his little sister, both with messy brown hair sitting with their mother near them on the monorail, their eyes wide as they stared at the two officers with awestruck looks on their little faces. Alec quickly lower his voice, "Whichever it is, all that matters is it's happening, this war isn't a fight we can win if we're not all in."

As the rail rounded a small skyscraper, they could see the UNSC dry dock just outside the city limits, flickering light erupting from all over the area from hundreds of industrial grade welding torches being used.

"So, that must be my new ship, you didn't tell me it was a brand new Marathon."

"You didn't ask Captain, and it's not like an Admiral would hitch a ride in anything else."

Captain Strieger had to admit, she was right, a Marathon-class heavy cruiser, one of the biggest and baddest new additions to the UNSC fleet, meant to replace the aging Halcyon-class light cruisers. There were only so many of these ships out and about, usually under the command of fleet admirals and acting as flagships. Although it didn't have nearly the firepower of a carrier, the ship could still pack a serious punch with its two bow mounted Magnetic Acceleration Cannons, oversized archer missile pods, 50mm point defense guns, fusion rockets, and Shiva nuclear missile launchers. As the rail pulled up to the station just left of the ship, the two of them could see the ship's name, painted in white and illuminated by ambient lights above it.

"UNSC Seventh Son, it's quite a ship," Karlsson piped in as the monorail door slid open and the two officers as well as a few dozen construction workers filed out.

"Indeed, I'll meet you on the bridge deck, spread the word the captain wants a meeting in one five hundred with all chief officers and bridge staff. I'd rather get this done before Admiral Corvitz arrives."

"Aye Captain," and with that, she made her way across the Tarmac and clambered across a gang plank onto the service elevator, Strieger tilted his head slightly, watching her as she walked away, whistling quietly to himself before straightening his service cap and making his way onto the _Seventh Son._ Making his way through the ship and introducing himself to every crewmember that stopped to salute him, he eventually made his way to the expansive bridge deck. A holographic projection table occupied the center of the room, surrounded on both sides by empty terminals. Overhanging screens and diagnostic consoles attached to three walls. Past the projection table sat the captain's chair, fully mic-ed up and interfaced directly to the ship's AI. Past that was the helm and navigation stations, both hanging seats enclosed in the bubbled viewport, though the very vulnerable looking viewport was actually reinforced and had titanium-A shutters as a just in case. Standing between the captain's chair and the holotable were about a dozen or so officers standing at attention in platoon formation.

"At ease men, it's time for a meet and greet."

"Aye Captain" they echoed before relaxing their stance, folding their arms behind their back.

One by one Captain Strieger was introduced to them. There was the timid young Ensign Joshua Ferguson, a short and skinny navigation officer with regulation-breaking mop of black hair under his service cap. Petty Officer Cullen O'Malley, a gruff and short-tempered chief weapons officer of Irish ancestry, who had full body tattoos up to his collar, and was as broad shouldered and muscular as he was intimidating, he operated the MAC cannon controls, while his two junior officers Steven Wilson and Miranda Pollard, a pair of fair skinned Skjope natives with British accents, handled the missiles and point defense weapons respectively, with Pollard also in charge of coordinating the ship's starfighter contingent. Chief Engineer Howard Dixon and Communications Officer Kendall Wright were both currently off ship and were unable to make it to the meeting. Finally at the end of the formation stood Freja Karlsson, who Strieger had already met, and a rather intimidating looking Asian woman who introduced herself as Lieutenant Natalie Wei, acting first mate, although pretty and slender framed, she had a look on her face that could freeze plasma.

"So, other than Dixon and Wright these are my conning officers?"

"That is correct captain, and this is Iago." Wei responded as an image of a green man wearing a 14th century cuirass and sported a short beard.

"Artificial Inteligence unit, designation IAGO, at your service captain," the hologram spoke with a Victorian English accent.

"As in the antagonist from William Shakespeare's _Othello_ Iago?"

"Young and well-cultured, I quite like our new Captain, Lieutenant Wei" the AI chuckled.

"Seems you're starting up quite a fan club Cap'n" O'Malley interjected with a hearty laugh.

"I'll be taking applications, now back to the business at hand. From the files I received this morning from our own Petty Officer Karlsson, the _Seventh Son_ 's maiden voyage will be the delivery of a few UNSC VIPs to Castle Base on Reach. These VIPs, particularly Rear Admiral Corvitz of the 3rd fleet, will be arriving at 0700 followed by our departure at 0730. I want everyone bright eyed, bushy tailed, sober, and I want the ship to be prepared for launch before Corvitz arrives. Inform the enlisted men, start warming up the reactor, and for God sakes have someone find Dixon and Wright, if anyone needs me, I'll be unpacking, am I understood?"

"Aye Captain" the officers echoed back.

"Dismissed"


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter 2**_

* * *

As the conning officers made their way off the bridge to their own separate duties, Captain Strieger made his way to his captain's quarters to unpack his personal belongings. Making his way to the extremely spacious quarters with a fully stocked bar and direct communications link station. Walking into his personal bathroom to inspect his haircut, he came across his own reflection in the full body mirror.

"What the hell did I get myself into this time?"

He was 21 years old and the captain of a flagship sized UNSC cruiser, about to host an admiral on his first day of duty. The ridiculousness of his situation had once again set in as he viewed his deep green eyes and the tan he still maintained from his Officer Academy days, doing push-ups in the sun until his arms were jello, his muscular build and X-shaped scar on his chest he received in his first bar fight on Arcadia concealed under his uniform. Quickly finishing his unpacking, Strieger heard a crisp knock on the door, snapping him out of his flash of reminiscence.

"Come on in sailor, I don't bite..."

"We do." the door slid open and a pair of ODSTs walked into the quarters, their helmets held at their left hip. The one standing in front with a silver stripe on his helmet stood about an inch taller then Captain Strieger, dark skinned, chiseled and emotionally neutral with a small scar across his cheek, a stark comparison to his fidgety partner who stood about a foot behind him fiddling with her gloves, the sides of her head shaved, the remaining on top and back braided down to reveal her scalp tattoos on both sides of her head, her helmet sporting a green stripe. Both snapped into a crisp salute as the man in front spoke up in a deep brooding voice.

"Lieutenant Colonel David Miles, and this is my XO Cassandra Gabriels, I lead the Son's ODST contingent. Wanted to meet my new commanding officer while we're sailing in this tin can."

"Pleasure to meet you Colonel, ODSTs have saved my ass on a few occasions, your lot is fine by me. May I ask why you couldn't make it to the meeting on the bridge deck?"

"Wasn't aware of one Captain, I was inspecting the inventory of the ship's main armory all afternoon."

"Strange, I assumed you were on-shore, I asked Karlsson to tell Lieutenant Wei to inform all commanding officers of the meeting."

"That explains a lot, the Lieutenant and I don't exactly see eye to eye."

Strieger upturned his eyebrow, "And what do you mean by that colonel?"

"She believes my methods are 'overzealous' and 'out of line'."

Alec would frown, folding his arms over his chest. "If this is true Colonel then I will be addressing it immediately, I can't afford to have two of my highest ranking subordinates clashing. I'll have a conversation with the Lieutenant once the Son has cast off, until then, I expect your men to be prepared for the admiral's arrival."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world Captain," and with a crisp salute, Miles and his lackey made their way out of the captain's quarters, the door sliding shut behind them. Leaving Captain Strieger standing there in silence.

About an hour or so later, the majority of the ship's crew stood in parade formation as a motorcade of 5 armored vehicles made their way to the main gate of the dry dock facility. Stepping out of the second to last vehicle came Rear Admiral Corvitz, his gray hair peaking out of the corners of his dress whites cap, his wrinkled face smiling as he looked over the engines and stern of the _Seventh Son_ as he made his way toward Captain Strieger and Lieutenant Wei. The two of them crisply saluting him before he waved them at ease.

"An excellent welcome as always Lieutenant, and Alec, it's been too long son, I haven't seen that goofy face of yours since your parents brought you to the Admiral's Ball and you and the rest of the toddlers staged a mutiny."

Strieger turned a bit pink and tilted off his service cap forward, scratching the back of his head, "17 years and my mother still hasn't forgiven me for that. And it seems you haven't either. Quite an entrance you made Admiral, certainly draws a lot of attention."

The admiral would reach out his hand and the two of they would shake with a few chuckles.

"UNSC protocol can be a bit vexing at times, but the leather seats and loaded assault rifles can be comforting in their own way, but there is a small hitch to our trip. Were you informed about the rest of your passengers?"

"We were told there would be a few emissaries and corporate executives hitching a ride to Reach other than you, but that was all we were informed of."

The admiral sighed and brushed his eyebrows down with his thumbs, "It seems there are going to be some extra hangers-on."

With that three of the five other armored vehicles opened their rear bays, filing out were about a half dozen men in business suits, shuffling along wide eyed as they made their way towards the captain, followed last by 5 people in jet black uniforms, Office of Naval Intelligence patches on both shoulders. Led by a hispanic looking woman with her hair in a tight bun, a neutral expression across her face and on the rest of the black uniformed officers faces.

"Nobody mentioned anything about Spooks on this cruise." Wei muttered under her breath.

"I apologize for this not being added to the mission details Lieutenant, ONI headquarters rarely ever announces its presence, and when it does it's usually only to the highest on the totem pole." Replied Corvitz as the ONI officers stopped at attention next to the admiral, all quickly saluting him before the woman in charge spoke up.

"Admiral, Captain." Taking a moment to salute both of them. "As I'm sure the admiral already knows, I am Petty Officer Valencia Perón, ONI strategic research division, I have been given orders from Lord Hood to accompany the admiral and his ….entourage to Reach. I assume that works for you, Captain Strieger?"

Her tone, confused him, it was both soft and condescending at the same time, and with his hangover still not fully faded from his skull, Captain Strieger couldn't tell if she was hitting on him or challenging his command. Alec broke military bearing for a second to rub the corner of his eye and sigh softly before turning back to her.

"Not that my ship and crew don't love all this new company ma'am, but I'd like to know more about why you're hitching a ride on my vessel, I find it very hard to believe that ONI with its Prowler stealth fleet couldn't give you a lift to Reach, so this leaves me questioning your's and ONI's intentions with my ship."

"The first rule about working with ONI Captain, don't ask questions. You're better off not knowing, and with that said, I will see you all again at dinner."

And with that, she turned and marched into the ship behind the businessmen. A small vein bulging slightly on Strieger's right temple. Now that was some serious cold-shoulder. As Corvitz stepped forward and patted him on the shoulder.

"Try to make the best of it, this is your first voyage as captain and ONI is already meddling with you, means they think you're gonna be a big timer someday." The admiral laughed.

"Or they're trying to find an excuse to get rid of me." Alec chuckled back. "Now if you'll follow me sir, I'll show you to your quarters as the crew preps for takeoff, Lieutenant, fall the men out and begin preflight checks."

"Aye Captain" Wei turned back to the majority of the ship's crew in parade formation as Strieger and Corvitz made their way up the gangplank. "You heard the Captain, fall out and get ready for cast off."


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter 3**_

* * *

As the _Seventh Son_ lifted out of drydock and began its bumpy ascent through Skojpe's atmosphere, Streiger took this time to quietly review their navigation points on their way to Reach from his captain's chair, arching his eyebrow as his eyes scanned over the data pad before looking up back to the viewport as the ship entered slipspace.

"Ferguson, what's with these connection points? We're taking an abnormally wide detour to get to Reach."

"Um, I'm not sure Captain, they were the revised mission coordinates, we were uploaded these ones a few minutes ago."

"Uploaded under whose orders Ensign?" Strieger retorted, a bit of annoyance in his voice.

"P-P-Petty Officer Perón sir." Ferguson responded, sinking into his seat like he thought the Captain was going to hit him.

Captain Strieger rolled his eyes and leaned forward in his seat, resting his chin on his fist and sighed.

"…Of course it was, we'll play along for now, Iago, I have a little assignment for you." Alec called out, Iago's holograph appearing out of the armrest of his chair.

"What might thou require good Captain?"

"I need you to keep an eye on our esteemed guest Miss Perón."

"Dear Captain, mustn't I have to remind thou that interfering with member's of the Office of Naval Intelligence's duties is a punishable offense. You could lose your commission, or end up in jail."

"I'm not risking my new crew's lives on whatever experiment ONI has planned for us, I just got my own lackeys, can't lose them just yet." A few chuckles rang around the bridge "Besides, a wise man once said it's easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission. I'm overriding protocol on this one, inform me of anything you see or hear."

"As thee wish Captain, I will inform you if the Petty Officer does anything suspicious."

"Everything she does is suspicious, just keep me updated for anything out of the ordinary alright?"

To his left, Lieutenant Wei, still a sour look on her face turned to him, "Captain Strieger, with all due respect, and you sure we can trust the Admiral? There's no way he wouldn't have known about ONI hitching a ride, it doesn't go much higher up the pecking order than him, my gut tells me he's lying to us, what I can't figure out is why."

"Corvitz was the best man at my father's wedding, there's nobody he trusted more, but all the same I can't help but agree with you, something isn't right. On the other hand, when we arrive at Reach, we need to have a conversation with regards to Colonel Miles, and you ignoring my direct orders."

Lieutenant Wei's facial expression changed for a moment, a wild look in her eyes, looking suspiciously like fear. "I… Captain I'm sorry, I meant to tell you before dust off but"

"C-Captain! We have a problem!" Shouted Karlsson, her voice cracking in terror.

"What the hell is going on n- Holy shit..." The volume leaving his voice as he turned to the viewport, his arm dropping limp from his chin and sitting back in his seat as the corpse of a Marine floated past the viewport.

Ahead of the ship floated a massive graveyard, all around them floated the signs of a slaughter. Dozens of UNSC warships floated listlessly in the vacuum, their bulkheads shattered, others completely separated in half, and others almost entirely destroyed, the only evidence remaining of their existence being the thousands of pieces of debris scattered all around of varying sizes, from titanium rivets to chunks of mangled metal the size of tanks. Behind the field of destroyed hulks and floating bodies drifting listlessly through space in horribly contorted positions sat a massive station whose original purpose was no longer recognizable, massive plasma burns pocketing across the entirety of the station, massive sections burned entirely away, vaporized by the covenant's far superior weapons technology.

"Ensign, where are we?"

"Slipspace navpoint 4, which means this is...was Refuel Station Ocho Rios." Ferguson replied, his hand shaking,"what happened here?"

"I've never even heard of this place, what were all these ships doing in one place anyway? There were no reports of any planned operations for at least a few weeks." Comms Officer Wright spoke as she stood up in her seat near the back of the bridge trying to get a closer look, only to immediately regret it and cover her mouth in disgust, turning a slight shade of green.

"Ocho Rio station, before this war with the covenant began this was a major crossroads for shipping and colony vessels, 8 trade routes crossed through this station, hence the name. Though since the war began, only about 3 are still operational." Iago spoke over the bridge's intercom.

"Poor blokes didn't stand a chance" interjected Pollard.

"For this many ships in one place to not score a single kill…what could have attacked them?"

"It looks like whatever attacked caught them by surprise. I want everyone at their stations and battle ready, whatever attacked this station might come back at any time. If this attack hasn't been reported yet it must have been recent." Captain Strieger responded as suddenly a blue light began flashing on Ferguson's console.

"Sir, an automated distress signal just triggered, it's coming from the station, but something's wrong, it's broadcasting across open channels, anyone could be listening in, even the Covenant."

"I smell spooks Captain, I think we all know who are probably the cause of this." Said the Lieutenant.

Alec interlocked his fingers in front of his lips, leaning forward on them as he took a second to think and weigh his options. The way he saw it there were only two options, try to run for it, or try to ambush whatever comes in the cover of the debris field, both were most likely suicidal. With how long it would take to "swim" the _Seventh Son_ to the other side of the field with enough room to safely enter slipspace, the covenant would catch them in the open. On the other hand, an ambush would depend entirely on how many Covenant ships respond to the distress signal.

"Karlsson, maneuver us behind one of those hulks. Lieutenant, I want everyone on this ship in their pressurized suits asap, we're shutting down all power once we're in position, minus the weapons, that includes life support, inform the Admiral that he needs to stay in his quarters for his own safety." Strieger sat up slightly and pressed a pair of buttons on the armrest of his chair, the hologram of Colonel Miles flickering into view. "Colonel, you're looking bored, it seems I've got some work for you."

"Whatever it is sir, it beats sitting in this soup can waiting to get blown up." he retorted.

"I need you to gather every marine and non-essential crew with EVA training, take as many Pelicans as you need, unload the Moray mines from the Longswords and start placing them within the debris field, if one of those squid heads so much as farts near it I want a fucking firework show. You have half an hour, and when it's done I want the detonator in my hand, do you understand?!"

"Crystal clear Captain, we'll try to be quick about it. You heard the captain you lazy pukes, it's time to get to work!"


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter 4**_

Strieger always hated these damn suits, they restricted movement, they smelled like mothballs and piss, and the internal heaters had always been unreliable at best, which he could see as he watched his officers shivering in their seats as the ship got increasingly colder. He looked down at his right hand, the grip shaped detonator grasped firmly in his gloved hand. The bridge was dark, every terminal, light, and piece of equipment was shut off with the exception of Petty Officer O'Malley's weapon station, the rest of the bridge was dully illuminated by a mix of glow-sticks, flashlights, and the light of Iago's blue hologram.

"Iago, do you think the Covenant will notice us here?"

"That is very unlikely good Captain, visually, the destroyed hulk to our port side and the blackness of space will protect us from being seen through say, a viewport, but if they pass the hulk, they might spot us with their ambient lights and notice a very not-destroyed Marathon-class Cruiser. On the sensory side, the amount of power and heat to keep the engines ready and the MAC cannons primed is less than most of the destroyed vessels around us, many still have electrical fires or auxiliary power generators still running in their unbreached bulkheads, we should remain completely undetected until we fire."

"Excellent, but we have to plan for the worst case, if this operation fails I'm entrusting you to activate the Cole Protocol."

"I understand Captain Strieger, if it does come to that, I would like to say it has been an honor serving thee these past 4.27 hours."

"Slipspace ruptures detected Captain, three in total." Buzzed Ferguson through the in-helmet radio.

Across the other side of the debris field, 3 circular slipspace ruptures opened, a trio of the large bulbous shaped vessels slowly emerging from the tear. The two smaller vessels Alec instantly recognized, though small was definitely not the right word. 2 CCS covenant battlecruisers, both vessels were about the same size as the _Seventh Son_ , the covenant vessels being larger in length but not height. Strieger was confident that with a proper surprise they could handle them without too much risk, but the sight of the final ship seemingly tore the breath from his lungs. The vessel looked remarkably similar to the CCS class in design, the main terrifying difference being its size. This massive ship that Strieger could only guess functioned as some sort of carrier was over 5 or 6 times the size of the Son, and Alec could only guess what kind of firepower the thing possessed.

"Everyone, remain calm and stick to the plan."

"Look at the fucking size of that thing!" Comm Officer Wright muttered under her breath.

"If the split-jaws can build it, we can break it," O'Malley interjected with steel in his voice, but Captain Strieger could make out him pulling a small silver cross out of his collar in the unlit bridge.

The massive vessels began slowly lumbering through the debris field, making a beeline straight towards the station. At first the shields of the ships could be visibly seen battering through the debris field, a blue bubble-like field appearing every time an impact was made, but about halfway to their destination, the shield disappeared, metallic debris now visibly striking and jostling the two smaller vessels, and merely denting the carrier.

"Status report, those impacts aren't nearly enough to break through a battlecruiser's shields."

"It looks like they shut them down on purpose, but why?" Responded the Lieutenant.

"Covenant shielding technology has been known to overload and cause irreparable damage to their ships hulls under too much stress. Perhaps they'd rather suffer the dents then risk overloading their shields," spoke Iago as he made another flurry of weapons checks.

"We couldn't possibly be that lucky could we?" Karlsson whispered.

Alec tightened his fist around the detonator as the covenant vessels passed their cover, a Marathon-class like the Son, only this one's bridge had been physically sliced off, most likely by an energy projector. A very grim reminder of what might happen to them if they screwed this up. The Covenant continued on towards the station without noticing them, approaching ever closer to the dilapidated refueling station. Just a little bit closer, a little bit deeper into the debris. He flicked open the trigger safety, his thumb hanging over the button, this was the moment of truth, the Covenant ships were less than two hundred yards from the station and were beginning to launch transports to board the destroyed station. Strieger took a deep breath, exhaling slowly as he brought down his thumb.

All at once every last one of the hundreds of mines that Miles and the marines had placed detonated simultaneously. Explosions in space had always fascinated Alec. The silence, and the strange mixture of a short fireball that was more like a blinding camera flash and the massive increase in explosive power due to the lack of atmospheric friction. In a split second one of the CCS battlecruisers had ruptured it's bulkheads, the outer hull compressing in before exploding outwards, a series of smaller explosions rocked through the ship as decompressions spread throughout its hull. The other two Covenant ships also seemed heavily damaged, though only on their surfaces, as they seemed to be extremely disoriented as their lead ship began listing to its port side, explosions continuing to shake through its hull. The _Seventh Son_ immediately reactivated it's thrusters and veered to its starboard side as Iago and O'Malley worked in tandem to aim and fire the MAC cannons.

The Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, also known as the Mass Accelerator Cannon, MAC Gun and MAC Cannon, a large coilgun, similar to a railgun in design, that serves as the primary offensive weapon for their warships. The weapons are so important that most UNSC warships are built around the weapon system. Because of their status as the only non-nuclear weapons in the UNSC arsenal capable of effectively reducing or destroying Covenant capital ships' energy shields.

The energy shields were always the problem, it would usually take 2 MAC rounds or a full salvo of over 600 Archer anti-ship missiles to overload a battlecruiser's shielding, and there's no telling how many hits it would take to down the shields of a vessel of that size. Lucky for them they had been kind enough to deactivate them. If there was ever a time to engage the two remaining ships, it was now. They were confused, disorientated, and their surfaces were already heavily damaged, chances were many of their weapons systems were inoperable thanks to the massive concussive waves. It was do-or-die time and we had no plan of waiting.

O'Malley fired both forward facing MAC guns simultaneously, the stabilizers and rear thrusters activated for a moment to compensate for the inertia of the cannons, but it was more to keep the cruiser on target. A massive hum of the weapons priming, followed by a metallic whine could be heard inside the vessel as it fired, the thump of the blast jerking forward everyone onboard, it felt like a punch to the chest, but it was a satisfying one. The two standard ship-based MAC cannons fire slugs of ferric Tungsten approximately 9.1 meters long at around 30,000 meters per second. The high muzzle speed gives the 600-ton slug the kinetic energy and momentum necessary to damage a target and partially mitigated the unguided nature of the slug and its lack of maneuverability. By the time the slug is fired out the end of the barrel it has accelerated to a speed of approximately 30 kilometers per second, with the destructive power of 64.53 kilotons of TNT, essentially one giant bullet.

With destructive power like that on an unshielded target, Alec couldn't help but smile wide. Both rounds struck the Covenant carrier through its engines, tearing their way through the Covenant ship room by room, both blasting out the front of the ship followed by a massive fireball that quickly diminished, dissecting the vessel and going on to clipping the aft of the destroyed battlecruiser that was already in the process of colliding into the refuel station. Moments after the rounds tore through the massive carrier, the depressurization ripped even more holes through the ship, and all but two engines had exploded.

"One minute to recharge MAC one, minute twenty to fully charge both sir." O'Malley shouted from his console.

"Captain, the carrier is coming about." Karlsson interrupted.

Iago's hologram flickered for a moment as he made a few calculations. "They will be facing us with their broadside in approximately 56.239 seconds."

O'Malley spun around in his chair, "How's that possible?! Covenant warships have their bridges in the center of their ships, and we just put two MAC rounds through the bastard!"

"They must have an auxiliary bridge." Wei responded, the cold confidence having returned to her face, "your orders Captain?

"Weapons free, fire everything we have at it."

"Even the Shivas sir?" Junior officer Wilson spoke up from his missile control console.

"Save the nukes, we still have a third ship to deal with."

With that, the _Seventh Son_ opened fire on the slowly turning Covenant Carrier, launching its first salvo of Archer missiles and began firing it's 50mm autocannons. A few Longswords also began leaving the hangar to begin strafing runs on the final battlecruiser to keep it occupied as the _Seventh Son_ finished off the carrier. With only a few plasma turrets still functional, the carrier was only able to shoot down around a dozen of the missiles before they hit their marks. All along the hull, Archer missiles blasted massive gouges that shook the carrier to the core, one of the missiles launched by a strafing Longsword fighter landed directly inside the carrier's main hanger bay, igniting the fuel storage and ripping the starboard half of the ship to pieces.

Ferguson jumped out of his seat and cheered as the bridge crew watched as half of the Covenant ship was vaporized by its own fuel. "We got 'em on ice Captain, that thing's looking like half a million tons of chewed bubblegum!"

"Sit down Ferguson we can celebrate when it's over. Karlsson, maneuver us into cover, the last battlecruiser is ignoring our Longswords."

"Aye Captain, I suggest everyone hold on." Karlsson replied as she flipped up a pair of switches and grabbed hold of the steering joystick.

All at once the port side thrusters activated, strafing the _Seventh Son_ to the right, just as a plasma torpedo launched passed them, striking the destroyed Marathon-class the Son had been using as cover, the purplish-blue plasma melting a hole straight through one end to the other. A halt of plasma fire continued spraying down upon the Son as it spun and began outflanking the Covenant vessel, but Karlsson continued to be able to dodge the onslaught by maneuvering through the debris field, the majority of the enemy fire striking floating pieces of scrap metal and destroyed vehicles. Though she was an excellent pilot, that didn't stop the cruiser from colliding with small to medium pieces of debris, and stray plasma fire, all three shaking the ship violently.

Karlsson seemed to be unphased by the impacts, running her left hand over another set of buttons and switches. "If we survive this, I'm going to have a conversation with Dixon, the gyroscopes are off by 30 degrees, compensating."

Strieger was more or less amazed that she could maneuver a ship of this size with thousands of people aboard as if it was an oversized fighter jet. Coming out of its spin and facing the Covenant battlecruiser, O'Malley and Iago once again fired a pair of MAC rounds at the warship, this time once at a time, the second one fired 2 seconds after the first. At the same time, Wilson launched a second salvo of Archer missiles and Pollard ordered the Longsword starfighters to begin another set of strafing runs.

This time the Covenant wasn't as open as before. Learning from the deadly mistake of its two fellow vessels, the CCS reactivated its energy shields, the first MAC round disintegrated against the battlecruiser's shield causing the bubble to flicker and the craft to lurch backwards. The second MAC round also disintegrated, but caused the shield to visibly shatter, a small explosion appearing on the top of the craft, most likely where the generator had been due to its overload. Being now shieldless, it looked like it was over for the last Covenant vessel, but this last ship was the least damaged by the mine surprise attack, being positioned between the carrier and other battlecruiser, it had significantly less surface damage on its sides, the ship still possessing many undamaged point defense plasma pulse turrets. Shooting over one hundred and fifty of the missiles down, but it wasn't enough. The other four hundred and fifty missiles peppered all across the port side of the Covenant battlecruiser, fires erupting from the gouges caused by the subsequent explosive decompressions. The CCS then fired up its engines and began plowing through the debris field, limping its way towards the edge of the field.

A beeping suddenly started erupting from Lieutenant Wei's console, she quickly looked over her screen before turning to look at Captain Strieger. "Radiation spike, they're trying to made a jump to Slipspace sir."

Comms Officer Wright leaned up from her console,"They're running? The covenant never run."

"Hahahahaha, looking like the bloody split-jaws do know what's good for them." Pollard laughed and started whooping up the bridge crew.

"Orders Captain?" Wei quietly asked

Strieger cracked his knuckles, "as much as I would love to know that the crew of that ship will be executed for incompetence, it's one more ship we'll have to fight another day, if we let them escape they'll be back with 30 ships in a few hours, besides, I believe the men that died here could use a little revenge to send them off properly." Strieger pointed with an open palm the dozens of destroyed UNSC vessels floating listlessly in the empty vacuum. "Wilson, arm the Shivas, we're nuking the sons a' bitches."

"With pleasure sir, arming Shivas."

"All squadrons, this is Petty Officer Wright, return to the Son, we have a code ARMAGEDDON, repeat, code ARMAGEDDON."

About 30 seconds later, a single missile launched from the _Seventh Son_ , spray painted onto the side of the warhead were the words, "ET phone home." There was no denying it, those marines do have a sense of humor after all. Alec sat in his chair as watched the warhead gaining on the Covenant ship as the titanium-A shutters began to quickly close to protect the crew's eyes. Wilson leaned in on his console, announcing the targeting data to the rest of the crew.

"6,000 meters to impact, 5,000 meters, 4,000 meters, this bloody super Shiva better not be a dud, too damn expensive. 2,000, 1,000, 500, we have impact! Struck just to the right of their engines, detonation is good! I'd hold onto your butts everyone."

Strieger brought down his palm on the intercom button, "all hands, brace for impact!"

Suddenly the entire ship lurched backwards, then began violently wobbling and spinning, sending anything not tied down flying into the insider shutter and lifting Alec's stomach into his throat. As the shaking ended, and everyone took a minute to catch their breath and peel off their pressurized emergency suits, and in the case of Pollard and Ferguson, run off to vomit, Karlsson opened the shutters. The only traces left of the final battlecruiser was a fine purple dust that seemed to cover everything, even the Son's fresh paint was covered.

"Thanks to that nickel coating electronics are doing good, looks like we didn't EMP ourselves too bad, it'll take about 15 minutes to recharge the slipspace drive after using our MACs." Wei sighed as she sat back into her chair.

"Captain, we have activity coming from the Carrier." Iago noted.

Alec raised the camera feed, the image covering a section of the viewport, "Looks like all the firepower we poured into it didn't quite kill all of them. Raise the shutters, I want everyone back on full alert until we've dealt with the last of them."

The crew watched on the feed as the shutters slowly opened, not wide enough to be seen through yet, as a swarm of small bulbous craft jettisoned from the remaining hangar of the burning Assault Carrier, turning towards the Seventh Son

"Boarding craft… sound the alarms and open fire with whatever we have left. How is the slipspace drive looking?"

"Dixon in engineering says the drive is still charging, and we're still stuck in the debris field, it doesn't look like we can run captain." Iago spoke after he brought up targeting displays.

Strieger stood up from his chair, attempting to yell over the now blaring attack alarm. "Then it looks like we fight them off ourselves."

The Covenant, whether through extreme zeal or bravery swarmed toward the _Seventh Son_ , even as the lead ships were blasted to pieces by arcs of 50mm fire and missile salvos, the bridge crew looked on in silence as at least a dozen hard thumps could be heard across the hull of the ship, one in particular striking relatively close to the bridge, Pollard slumping back into her chair and pulling her service cap down over her face. "I'm sorry sir…. There were too many, we couldn't hit them all, 14 of them made it to us."

"Rest easy Pollard, it's not your fault, we couldn't expect you to shoot them all down," Alec spoke in an attempt to comfort her, "I want status reports Iago, where did the boarding craft strike and where is the crew being engaged?"

"I've already located the points of all breaches, notified our marines of the locations on their eyepiece HUDs, and skimmed through a few books on covenant knowledge of our vessels. It seems that 11 of the boarding craft latched on to various unimportant bulkheads, unfortunately, 3 are near rather important locations, engineering, life support, and this bridge. All 14 locations are facing stiff fighting at the moment."

"If the Covenant know that this is the bridge, we can bet they'll be here soon, load your sidearms and be ready, the marines on board are spread thin at the moment." Halfway through Strieger's speech, a distant explosion from a grenade and a few dozen shots rang out. "And it sounds like we need to move fast."


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter 5**_

* * *

Most of the bridge officers were now loading their M6G Magnum pistols as Wei dug through a bulkhead compartment and Ferguson flipped through a holoprojected display with video feeds. One of a shootout in one of the ship's mess decks, another of a squad of marines and naval crewmen being gunned down in a hail of plasma fire, and another of the ODSTs running over a Hunter in a warthog, flattening it against the wall of the starboard cargo hangar bay. All the while the sound of gunfire and shouts continued to get closer to the bridge, Ferguson beginning to hyperventilate as Strieger moved to give him some comfort, something Strieger wasn't exactly experienced at, he wasn't experienced with almost any of what had gone on today, but he couldn't waver his false bravado, not in front of the bridge crew at a time like this.

"Something the matter Ferguson? Your first time seeing an alien?"

"Outside of patriot news broadcasts and holovids, yeah it is, are they really as bad as they say they are?"

"Do you bleed Ferguson?"

"Um...excuse me sir?"

"It was a question Ensign, do you bleed?"

"Well, yes I do sir."

Alec placed his hand on Ferguson's shoulder like a father figure, despite them only a year or two apart in age as he knocked his knuckles lightly on his chest. "So do they, if it bleeds, then it can be killed... don't bother trying to overthink things, just remember that fact, and do your duty."

Strieger planned on saying more; about how the bridge's one entrance was an excellent choke point, but he was suddenly interrupted by a pair of marines that ran onto the bridge, assault rifles in hand. One of them yelling out as the other dropped his rifle and put his hands on his knees, gasping for breath as muzzle flashes and green blobs of plasma flew through the hallway.

"Sir, Tango and Zulu teams have both been wiped out attempting to hold the covies back, we have aliens in the corridor, we need to evacuate you and all vital personnel from this location."

"It's too late for that marine, if they're in the corridor then they already have us trapped. We hold the bridge."

The marine stepped forward to argue but was struck in the back by a glob of green plasma, knocking him to the floor and melting through the ballistic armor on his back, severely searing his flesh. As he dropped to the ground screaming, the crew turned to the doorway, one of the little bipedal creatures the marines called a grunt stood there, plasma pistol in hand.

As the cowardly little creatures saw the rest of the crew turn to him, it squeaked and threw his pistol into the air, attempting to run away with its hands throw up in the air, to no avail as the crew unloaded 6 .50 magnum caliber rounds into the creature's back, propelling it into the bulkhead wall and splattering its electric blue blood across the wall.

Before anything else could be said or done, another 3 dozen of the little creatures turned the corner, these ones emboldened by their numbers did not decide to run. The officers with their magnums and one marine with his assault rifle opened fire from behind the cover of their consoles, tearing the shieldless grunts to shreds. As this second wave of the little menaces kept coming, the bridge crew began running out of ammunition, as most only carried a single magazine on them, another trio of grunts entered the bridge, needlers in hand, when there was a loud crack, followed by the distinctive pump of a shotgun, the Grunts being immediately shredded by the buckshot.

Strieger turned to see Lieutenant Wei standing there, shotgun in hand that she must have pulled from a bulkhead compartment. Shell casing clattering to the floor as she began walking forward, nodding at the marine. Her weapon at her shoulder as she and the marine advanced to drag the still breathing wounded man away from the door.

"It's not safe lass, we don't know how many more are around that corner." O'Malley spoke to Wei from behind the holographic display table he was using as cover.

"The man has plasma burns, if we don't treat him with biofoam soon he'll die of infection." Wei spoke as she and the other marine slowly moved forward towards the choke-point of the door.

Unfortunately for them as the marine placed his hand to check the downed man's pulse, his arm was grabbed and yanked on by some invisible force, before doubling over as if struck in the abdomen, the marine hit the ground with a smack, blindly firing a few rounds of his assault rifle before the weapon was wrenched from his grip and thrown across the room. A few of the rounds striking the invisible entity and fizzing against its shields, disrupting the active camouflage and revealing a hulking elite in maroon armor, standing over Wei and the disarmed marine, Wei immediately raised her weapon to the Elite's head but the creature grabbed the barrel and turned it out of the way, the shell blasting harmlessly into the bulkhead ceiling. It then grabbed Wei by the arm, lifting her off the ground and placing its 4 fingered fist squarely into the center of her stomach, causing her to scream in pain before being thrown to the ground. Pollard, O'Malley, Wright, and Ferguson all aimed and attempted to fire at the creature, but both Ferguson and Wright were both out of ammo, and Pollard and O'Malley were both only able to get off 2 shots and 1 shot respectively, flickering harmlessly into the elite's shields. The elite warbled its jaws, almost as if laughing, before pointing his plasma rifle towards Wei, crumpled on the floor, only to be interrupted when the disarmed marine leaped onto its back, driving his combat knife into its shoulder, overloading the elite's shields and sending a spray of purple blood into the air. The Elite roared, grabbing at the marine and judo threw him over his shoulder, then as reaching to pull the knife from his shoulder, Strieger emptied an entire magazine of his magnum into the Elite's chest, each .50 magnum caliber round punching into the Elite and knocking him back step by step until he was pressed against the hallway wall as Strieger continued firing. As the last round struck the creature, the Elite howled, began to raise its weapon towards Alec, before dropping the plasma rifle and slumping to the floor in a pool of its purple blood.

Strieger breathed out deeply through his nostrils as the clip dropped to the floor with a clang, glad to finally have been able to put the extra magazine he always had hidden in his left boot to good use. Looking to his Lieutenant crumpled in a ball gasping for breathe, and the two marines groaning on the floor, he nodded to O'Malley and the two of them dashed forward, Strieger lifting Wei to her feet as O'Malley heaved the two marines onto his shoulders with a groan, only for the two of them to turn and see a pair of common elites standing in the doorway, carbines in hand and aimed at them, O'Malley sighing and turning to him as the rest of the crew watched, all out of ammunition. For some reason the Elites didn't immediately shoot them, perhaps they were soaking in the moment before them gunned them all down, their warbles sounded almost like they were laughing, much like the other squidhead.

"Well Cap'n, I'd say it was quite a run, but considering it's been a day would be a bunch a bullshit, but to be honest, that battle was some of the most impressive shite I've ever seen."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence…. For all its worth."

Cullen chuckled as he slumped his shoulders. "May you die in bed at 95, shot by a jealous spouse."

"I find that unlikely." Strieger retorted.

The moment was interrupted by the sound of a grenade going off in the hallway, catching both the Elites' attention, causing them to turn and fire a few shots to their left as they began to slowly back up, only to be sprayed down by a hail of bullets. As the corpses of the two aliens slumped to the ground, the clicking of dozens of foot falls could be heard approaching. Turning the corner in front of them were a few dozen ODSTs in full battle dress, Gabriels and Miles both recognizable by the color stripes on their helmets. Gabriels dual wielding a pair of submachine guns, and Miles with a battle rifle resting across his shoulder, removing his helmet with his free hand.

"Good to see you're still kicking captain, and by the looks of it you boys got some action yourself."

Strieger couldn't help but nervously laugh. "You certainly have an excellent sense of timing Colonel."

"It's a gift I suppose."

Two of the ODSTs with medic patches stepped forward to handle the two marines and the Lieutenant as the bridge crew caught their breath, some began to cry, others laughed nervously and thanking the ODSTs for saving their asses as Strieger and Miles paced away to discuss things.

"What's our status Miles, how are the Marines holding up?"

"Heh, pretty well all things considered, it seems that many of these boarding pods were not fully manned when they were launched, most likely due to that stunt you pulled turning their ship into a pincushion. We've seemed to have killed the majority of them and we've moved on to mop up operations of any stragglers wandering through the ship. In total we have about 60 casualties, 43 of them KIA." The two of them turned as one of the medics came walking over to them. "Make that 63."

"Captain, Colonel, it looks like these three should all make it, though definitely worse for wear."

Strieger turned and looked the ODST in the eye, or more specifically visor. "What's the diagnosis Marine?"

"Sir, the Lieutenant has 3 broken ribs, a torn rotator cuff, and a fractured sternum. Private Conti over there has a broken collarbone and 2 slipped discs. While in severe pain, neither have injuries that are particularly life threatening. It's the Corporal I'm worried about, severe 3rd degree plasma burns covering almost the entirety of his back, this ship is hardly sterile, especially now that it has alien blood and bacteria in it, if we're not careful he could die of infection."

"Noted." Miles said as he flicked on his safety, flipping his battle rifle into a more comfortable position cradled backwards across his forearm. "The path to the infirmary is clear, I'm taking 2 squads and bringing them there." Gabriels went to speak but was immediately cut off. "Gabriels, you're staying here and guarding the bridge with the rest of your platoon." She snapped her fingers and dropped her head in disappointment, holstering her caseless submachine guns into her hip holsters as the Colonel left the bridge and one of the other ODSTs turned to address her.

As Strieger turned back to the viewport, viewing the burning Assault Carrier floating aimlessly in the debris field. The pink and purple hull of the gargantuan vessel was now covered in pockmarks from colliding debris. The carrier continued to list to its port side, decompressions throughout the vessel would occasionally appear along the outer hull, a massive fireball appearing here or there, only to be quickly snuffed out by the vacuum. The captain was so distracted he didn't notice Petty Officer Perón enter the bridge, kicking over a corpse of a Grunt as she strutted by, flanked by a pair of other ONI agents.

"No more surprises, Wilson, load another Shiva, we have no means of boarding that ship without risking any survivors self destructing it on us, so we waste it."

"Unfortunately Captain, I must overrule you on that accord, though I must say, defeating 3 covenant capital ships with a lone Cruiser, very impressive." Perón interrupted him as she made his way towards the viewport screen, only for Strieger to block her path, his finger in her face, his eyes filled with rage.

"You! You knew about station and what happened to it, it was you who went over my head and changed our mission coordinates, and it was you that risked the lives of my entire crew for what?! A god damn field test?!"

Perón stood there as Strieger shouted in her face, seemingly unphased in the slightest. "That information, as you will soon learn about all things connected to ONI, is highly classified, though I assure you that you were never alone out there, see for yourself." She motioned towards the viewport with a nod of her head as the other ONI operatives moved to inspect the corpses of the two Elites.

Strieger and the bridge crew, as well as the lingering ODSTs turned towards the viewport, viewing the debris field and the floating covenant hulks with bulkheads still exploding and burning, suddenly a few distortions could be seen, a flicker much like the active camouflage of the Elites, as the camouflage faded fully, the crew could now see a trio of Prowler stealth corvettes, two of whom were turning towards the Covenant Assault Carrier.

"You had 3 vessels with nuclear weapons onboard and you didn't help us? It was pure luck that the shockwaves from the mine ambush disabled their energy projectors."

Perón sighed for a moment, brushing a bit of dust off the hip of her uniform. "While our original plan was to handle this mission ourselves and leave the Son for cleanup, our timing was… off, due to an uncalculated risk. Though it seems you decided to take a risk as well captain. I have no doubt that you fully comprehend the details of the Cole Protocol, the moment the covenant boarding craft attached to the _Seventh Son,_ it becomes the duty of the crew to overload the vessel's reactor to prevent the covenant from learning the location of Earth and the inner colonies. Failure to comply is a capital offense, equivalent for life imprisonment or a firing squad, for you and all your commissioned officers that didn't object."

Strieger began to object, but held himself, a defeated look upon his face. "Do what you will with me spook, it was my decision to continue the fight for the Son, nobody else's."

"Oh relax Captain, there are exceptions to the Cole Protocol, your actions defeated a small covenant fleet with a single vessel, saving your crew and a number of ONI personnel, as well as a Rear Admiral. Arresting you for that would be a serious blow in the PR department, and I'm not completely heartless believe it or not."

"There has to be something you can tell us about this mission, what happened to this station, or why there hasn't been any reports of this battle on the net." Strieger spoke, the rest of the crew remaining mostly silent as Iago ran diagnostics on the ship.

"Maybe when this mission is unclassified, now if you'll excuse me, there's still a mission to complete." Perón unfolded her arms, flattening out her sleeves and bringing her wrist to her face speaking into a hidden microphone on her uniform's cuff link. "Yellow Team, operation is green, you know what to do."

The crackle from the microphone responded, an electronic voice breaking through the static, loud enough for most of the bridge to hear. "Yes ma'am, moving to retrieve the package, callsign Osprey."

"Excellent" she responded, "You have a 30 minute window to retrieve the objective Sergeant, good luck."

"Wait a bloody second, Yellow Team…. Spartans?" Wilson muttered under his breath.

"Very well then, Petty Officer O'Malley, clear the bridge. I want a full assessment of the ship's damage, the boarding craft removed from the hull, and these alien corpses shot out an airlock, as the next most senior commissioned officer not wounded, see that it's done."

Cullen stood there, as if confused by his order before nodding, scratching his chin and tucking the cross around his neck back under his collar. "So be it Cap'n, you heard him boys and girls, we've got work to do. Ferguson, grab those Grunts and start dragging." He said as he turned towards the door, the rest of the bridge officers following him, with Ferguson jogging up next to him.

"What? Why me?!"

"Because the Cap'n just put me in charge, remember to lift with your knees"

The continued bickering as Ferguson relented, grabbing the Grunt by its three toed feet and started dragging it, Wright and Pollard laughing as they all filed out of the bridge, a set of nervous laughs, but it was nonetheless a good sign. Now the only people that remained on the bridge were Strieger, Perón, Gabriels, and her platoon of ODSTs.

"What about clear the bridge did you not understand Lieutenant?"

"Captain Strieger, with all due respect, I was ordered to guard the bridge and its crew."

"The crew just left Gabriels, I just give the orders, now go, we could use all the extra hands we have to search for Covenant stragglers, I'm ordering you to clear the bridge."

"But sir, the Colonel ordered me…"

"The Colonel isn't here Lieutenant, that was a direct order from the highest ranking officer onboard this ship, now!"

"But… Yes sir, let's move boys."

Once the Lieutenant and the rest of her platoon had left the bridge, all that remained were Strieger and Perón. Standing there in silence, the emptiness of the once packed bridge was chilling if nothing else, splashes of fluorescent blue Grunt blood still stained the grey metallic flooring. Strieger walked over to his chair pressing a button on its arm rest that muted the room to even Iago as Perón stood facing the viewport.

"Here we are Petty Officer, an empty bridge, completely cut off from prying ears, and nobody of improper clearance level. Tell me everything that happened here, please."

"Captain, despite the fact that your efforts here saved this entire operation, unless I get clearance from ONI high command, I can't disclose any information deemed classified to non-Intelligence agents."

"With all due respect ma'am, bullshit. How can you expect me and my crew to help you finish this mission if we don't even know what we're doing. I ask that you please tell me, if not for me, for all these men and women floating around in front of us, it's not right if they died for nothing, at the very least and as corny as it may sound, someone should know why they died."

Petty Officer Perón opened her mouth to speak, but cut herself off as she looked out the viewport to see a trio of UNSC midshipmen, floating listlessly in the vacuum, their skin blue, veins clearly visible under their flesh, all three of them had massive bruising around their throats, marks from their hands, the natural reaction to the feeling of suffocation. As an Intelligence Officer, she had done many questionable things for the sake of the human race's survival in this war, and she had seen just as many horrible scenes of suffering and violence, but something about this was different, they were only a few meters from the viewport, well lit by the bridge's ambient lights.

She could see the now dried blood that had leaked from their eyes, ears and nose, their eyes were all wide open, a look of twisted anguish across their cold faces, filling her with nausea and something someone at her position was trained not to feel, guilt. Running to a waste basket at a nearby terminal, Perón collapsed to one knee, heaving violently. Strieger moved to assist her but she held up her hand to him, indicating that she was fine. After a few moments of coughing, Perón caught her breath and turned back to Strieger.

"It's…*hick* what you can call a long story Captain Strieger, one that started when one of our Prowlers found something while investigating a derelict covenant vessel. The reports we were given from the crew stated that the ship was completely undamaged externally, but everything onboard was dead, when the EVAs moved in to investigate, they found that the ship had overloaded, like an ungrounded power cord. Every last inch of wiring onboard, every subsystem, everything was fried. They found a single object located on the bridge, a pyramid shaped object covered in alien doodles, definitely not covie gear. When one of the EVAs held a geiger counter to it the thing exploded in his hand, almost depressurized his suit. When asked what we should do with the device, it was my decision to move the device to Ocho Rios Station… I should have known better, we've always had reports that the covenant can track Forerunner tech."

"So the covenant tracked the device back to the station?"

"Yes," Perón heaved again, continuing her story after taking a few seconds to catch her breath again. "My team and I were all here, we knew the risks, and we thought that if we called in the 12th fleet we could safely study the device before moving it to a more secure location, we were wrong. A covenant fleet of over 600 warships all jumped into the system at once, I've never seen anything so terrifying. The Prowlers were able to cloak themselves and escape but…. the rest of the fleet was annihilated in moments."

"Listen, there was nothing you could do to save them Lieutenant, don't beat yourself up over it." Strieger placed his hand on her shoulder but she shrugged it away.

"You can keep telling me that and it won't make it true Captain. Back on topic, we were able to get the device onto one of the prowlers and after a bit of work we finally manage to stop them from tracking it, eventually, the covenant just gave up, left the system."

"How is that possible? Those aliens would eradicate a solar system to get at Forerunner tech, it's part of their principle directives, other than trying to kill us, and you're telling me they just shrugged their shoulders and left?"

"That's how we figured out who was really on board, the only way elites would go against a primary directive of the Prophets, is if there was a prophet onboard that ship commanding them, commanding the carrier you just turned into a flaming hunk of space debris. So my men waited in orbit while I returned to Skojpe, leased out a spartan team from FleetCOM, and activated the stations deep space beacon while managed the reactivate the device."

"Let me get this straight, you were going to send us into this ship graveyard alone, with no support, against what could have been a fleet of 600 warships?!"

"We miscalculated once again, we expected the Prophet to return with only a few ships, and possibly alone considering that they had just wiped out the entire fleet garrisoning the station, but what we didn't expect was how long it would take them to arrive. We planned on simply infiltrating the covenant ship covertly and escaping, the Seventh Son was only supposed to be our support to cover the Prowlers' escape, only the covenant took there time, and you arrived first."

Strieger took a moment to turn back towards the window towards the giant flaming carrier, bulkheads across the ship still popping here and there as the Prowlers moved in, he sighed deeply and turned back to Perón.

"What makes you think that beating we just put on that ship didn't kill the fucking turkey neck?"

"The Prophets are as smart as they are cowardly Captain, I'm sure the bastard is hiding in a safe room onboard that ship, if he was dead there would be nothing stopping them from self destructing."

Strieger formed a small smile on the corner of his mouth, "you owe my crew big time, but until we settle up, tell me what you need from me, the Seventh Son is at your disposal."

For the first time the whole trip, Alec saw the ONI officer crack a smile.

"Well, in that case, we need you to help us jam their communications, and if they're up to it, we could use some of your ODSTs."

"The boys do seem to be a bit itchy in the trigger finger department, I'll leave them under your care, just remember, you break em you buy em."

"No promises, now let's get underway, you know how important capturing this target could be."


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter 6**_

* * *

Hans-041 sat there, his battle rifle in one hand and an extra combat knife in the other as he slowly ground the blade against the end of the barrel, his increased strength allowing him to cut through the barrel in a few slices, greatly shortening its length, meanwhile his squad sat around him, all preoccupied with various tasks, with the exception of Jessie-072, who was stretched out as far as the straps on his jump seats would allow for him and his Mjolnir armor, arms behind his head and loudly whistling through the Pelican's comms. Suddenly a voice cracked over the comms, a voice Hans recognized as the pilot.

"Either one of you shuts him up, or I'm venting all of you out of my bird." His gruff voice buzzed through their helmet earpieces as Jessie chuckled and waved his arm in surrender.

"I get the picture sailor, no more noise from me."

"Pffffff, I doubt that Jess, your mouth runs faster than an assault rifle." Chuckled Lydia-077, currently attaching a bayonet to the end of her shotgun.

As the two of them continued bickering away as usual, Hans looked to his other two squadmates, Marshall-048 and Victoria-099. Both were quietly loading their shotguns, he was used to Marshall's silence before an operation, it was how the guy psyched himself up, but Victoria was different. She was a transfer, her squad was broke apart after a failed assignment on Harvest, while he was never given much in the way of details about her, he was told that there were no casualties involved in the botched mission.

She was just as quiet when she was introduced to the team, which perplexed Hans. All the exhaustingly long transfer psych profiles given to him all stated that she was extremely sociable, and besides that, they had all known Victoria since they were children. She was always a motor mouth, just like Jessie, he still has quite a few memories of her having the stones to crack jokes right in front of the chief, only to take a stun baton to the ribs from one of the marines, and stand up with a smile on her face. Just thinking about it brought him back to the old days, those old memories taking its time to worm their way into his head.

They had all been members of the same class of Spartan IIs, they were all taken as children, and they were all trained by that old bastard Mendez. Hans never understood how John came to respect the old bulldog, but he had never looked at their situation the same way John did. The Chief beat the hell out of all of them, but he always seemed to take a particular interest in beating the hell out of Hans and Marshall. As he continued his tirade to himself, he suddenly noticed that Victoria was looking at him, he would have slapped himself had he not been wearing a helmet, he had a bad habit of getting lost in thought and spacing out, something he had been trying to get rid of for years to no avail, their Pelican had been on standby, waiting in the vented hangar bay for almost 3 hours, and this was hardly the first time he'd spaced out.

"Hey, Hans you asleep in there? Why did you saw off the end of your battle rifle? You're greatly reducing your accuracy at long ranges." She spoke as she playfully reached over and knocked on his visor like it was a door, her black armor with yellow stripes and decals identical to the rest of them, with the exception of a number five painted onto the right shoulder.

"Hmm? Oh this? It's just for this mission, from what we know from our combat manuals and intelligence, the interior of this ship is going to be cramped bulkheads, vaulted ceilings, and small service tunnels for Engineers, rather sacrifice a bit of accuracy for more movement in tight spaces."

"Fair enough I suppose."

"Speaking of which, you've been unusually quiet too Indigo." Hans spoke with his com off, keeping this observation inside his own helmet.

"I thought I'd give you all some bonding time, plus it's fun to watch, I believe this is what you organics once made soap operas out of." The familiar cold rush, like an icy IV down his spine appeared as Indigo linked herself to the small projection emitter in the center of the pelican's passenger bay. Her generated appearance blipping onto the screen. The AI stood with her hands behind her back, a sly grin on her face. Like her namesake she was a deep purplish blue, wearing a mechanic's jumpsuit with a pair of thick goggles hanging around her neck, her "hair" tied into a bun.

"I thought I'd take the time to go over our 3 dozen field manuals on covenant languages, architecture, ship schematics, and fine cuisine, that last one was actually quite an interesting read. I also took the liberty to re-calibrate your HUD, wouldn't want you miss anyone because you sawed off your muzzle break."

"Heh, did you start the coffee and get the paper?"

"I'm only an AI with the processing power of 12 supercomputers and looks that kill Petty Officer, I'm not perfect," She retorted.

Jess chuckled across the bay, "I didn't know they programed these things for sarcasm."

"High Command has a… peculiar sense of humor to say the least." Marshall finally spoke up, just as they were all interrupted by a frequency coming through their helmet radios.

"This is captain Martinez of the UNSC _Anselmo_. Operation Hydra is a go, I repeat, Operation Hydra is green lit, patching you through to Lieutenant Perón on the bridge of the _Seventh Son_."

As the crackling voice of the captain finished, Indigo's projection was removed and replaced by the familiar intelligence officer that had assigned them to this mission, as well as a stranger, another man standing behind her with his arms folded behind his back.

"Thank you Captain Martinez, now then, Spartans, you all know what we have to do, but this mission is too important not to go over the details one last time. Yellow team's mission is the capture of an alien we refer to as a "Prophet," we believe as you already know, that these aliens act as the spiritual leaders of the Covenant, as well as their overlords, and we have one now; defeated, surrounded, and unable to escape to slipspace. There might never be another chance like this gentlemen, and time is fleeting."

"Ma'am, with all due respect," Jess interrupted Perón, "We've never been inside of a covenant ship that hasn't already been destroyed, we have no clue about the layout, what kind of forces are still on board, and how long we have till the rest of the covenant fleet arrives to check up on their recently dead friends." Lydia quickly elbowed him in the knee before he could continue, though the armor made it more of a statement than a physical punishment.

As the conversation continued, the Spartans felt the lurch of the engine activating as the docking clamps unhooked from the _Anselmo_ as the Pelican left the hangar bay, engine's rumbling as it navigated its way through the debris field towards the flaming covenant ship.

"I assure you Spartan-072 that we have been preparing for a situation like this for a very long time, Yellow Team will be infiltrating the Carrier through one of the massive destroyed bulkheads lining the starboard half of vessel, from there you will insert Indigo into the ship's Mainframe, with her extensive hacking abilities plugged directly into the covenant ship's software, she should have no problem taking complete control of the vessel's systems and guiding you to the prophet's panic room. Once you find the Prophet, you will subdue him, and bring him to one of the few remaining functional hangars on the Carrier. Once there a Pelican will arrive with ODSTs from the UNSC _Seventh Son_ to pick you up and escort the alien to one of our Prowlers, if all goes right, we should be able to nab the Prophet and escape to slipspace before any Covenant retaliation arrives."

"And what's our exfil if the covenant does arrive ma'am?" Hans spoke up as he unclipped a magazine for his battle rifle from the strap on his shoulder.

"Your only option will be to EVA to one of the waiting prowlers as the Son escapes, at that point the target is expendable, do as you see fit in order to get your squad home Sergeant. I understand that this is a serious risk, and we're not even sure if we'll find what we're looking for, but I for one believe this is an opportunity we can't afford to waste." Her face didn't much match the confidence in her voice as she spoke before being interrupted by the pelican pilot.

"Ma'am, we're on approach to the Covenant Carrier now, debris is getting pretty thick."

"Very good lieutenant, your green light stands, god speed."

"Yes ma'am, I'll get your Spartans there in one piece." He said as he disconnected the holo-call. "Pfff, god." He muttered under his breath just loud enough to be heard through their earpieces.

The pelican continued through the field as light clanging reverberated through the ship from the thousands of smaller bits of unavoidable debris as it neared the covenant vessel. The pilot eased up on the stick as he slowly turned the ship around to where the troop bay was now facing the ship.

"Opening the bay doors in 3...2...1"

The latch turned with a hiss, and Hans felt the venting of the dropship's atmosphere pulling him against his seat harness.

"Alright Spartans, its' been a pleasure, now get the fuck off my bird."

"You don't have to tell us twice sailor." Jessie chuckled as he unlatched his harness, his magnetized boots keeping him firmly on the troop bay's floor as the rest of the squad follow suit. Hans nodded at Lydia, she shrugged and gave a little smirk under her visor as she turned toward a locker near the sealed door to the cockpit, opening it and pulling out a sniper rifle as the others attached their jump packs. Lydia then manually loaded a single grappling round into the rifle before aiming and firing it out of the bay, the harpoon tip lodging itself into the covenant ship's bulkhead.

"I still don't see why we can't just use these jetpacks now, they're a blast." Jessie muttered as he grabbed hold of the grappling line after Lydia hooked the rifle back into its locker, then slinging a small steel backpack over her shoulder.

"Gotta conserve fuel Jess, we don't know how far we'll have to EVA to get back to the Anselmo if this mission goes south. So we're doing this the old fashioned way, keep one hand on the line at all times." Hans grabbed onto the line as well as they moved to the back of the pelican, using their magnetized boots to stand on the cockpit wall and using it to push off, propelling the two of them towards the ship, their armored hands cuffed loosely around the wire as the others quickly followed suit. They silently floated through the vacuum, their breath visible inside their helmets as their suits internal temperature controllers compensated with a hiss, the squad latched onto the covenant vessel, boots first as they magnetized to the bulkhead. Hans turned once everyone had reached the vessel and drew his combat knife once again, slicing through the steel cord in one quick stroke. Signalling back to the pilot that the team was clear before rejoining the others who had just reached the edge of the impact crater.

He had guessed that it must have been caused by an archer missile, the charred gouge in the ship was nothing like the clean pierce of a MAC round. The crater left behind looked to be about 70 meters deep into the carrier. One by one the team floated through the burnt edges of the crumpled hull, grasping from one jutting piece of twisted metal to another until coming across a broken automatic door. Lydia and Jessie began going to work on it, the damn thing was caved in with a massive dent, the pressure already vacuumed out of the other side of the door and Marshall signaled that he could see a pair of dead jackals floating in the hallway on the other side through a small hole near the bottom of the door. Holstering their weapons and grasping the hole with both hands, Lydia and Jessie managed to tear back the metal wide enough for Victoria and Hans to squeeze through before quickly following them through.

The squad made their way down the hallway weapons drawn, pushing aside the floating alien corpses before stacking up on both sides of the next door. Hans reaching up and flicked on the vision settings of his vision, switching past night vision and image enhancement to thermomagnetic. His vision blinked into a black and white view, allowing him to spot about a dozen forms of various sizes walking around on the other side of the door. Hans stepped into the middle of the door and reached out his hand, rapping his knuckles a few times against the door before stacking back up against the wall just before the door with the rest of his squad. He watched as the forms shifted, moving their heads in what he could only assume was nondescript alien chattering before one of the smaller ones started walking towards the door, causing Hans to smirk as he flipped off his vision modes. A few moments passed as it seemed like it hadn't worked, Hans moved to turn his visions settings back on just as the door slid open.

They watched as the covenant troops on the other side of the door were ripped from their feet and sucked down the hallway by the vacuum. First a bunch of Grunts and Elites that were pinned to the crumpled door at the other end of the hall, almost blocking the hole, but quickly followed by a pair of the massive Hunter creatures, who went spiraling through the air like ballerinas before colliding into the crumpled door, squashing the other covvies like bugs and blasting the door clean off its hinges, jettisoning the lot of them clean out of the ship and into the vacuum of space.

They all stood there in the silent vacuum for a moment, staring back toward the door they had just entered before Victoria burst into laughter over their helmet comms. "Pffffffffhahahahhahahahha, did you fuckin' see the big ones?!"

One by one the squad began joining in, light chuckling expanding into hysterical laughter, even Hans joined in once he realized he couldn't keep the sound contained. The team carried on for what seemed like an eternity before being interrupted by Indigo.

"I will never understand where it is that you humans find this 'humor' of yours."

"Ahem, well, back to the business at hand then, fan out and find me a terminal before they begin to miss that lot."

"Roger."

"I've never been uploaded into a Covenant vessel of this size before." Indigo's voice chirped as if inside his head. "It's so exciting!" She giggled as the squad fanned out through the room, which from Hans' best guess was a small cargo area. Littered with strange containers and what looked like the alien equivalent of a forklift.

"I'm sure you are, now where are we?"

"Well… judging from our insertion point on the starboard side of the carrier and assuming that this ship is designed similarly to the smaller ones we've been able to board before… that would make this one of the cargo storage units, meaning this leads to the ventral gravity lift generator."

"Hans, we've found a terminal."

Hans nodded to Jessie and walked over to the terminal, a strange and bulbous device with a holographic display, tons in incomprehensible characters streaming across the screen. He shouldered his battle rifle and reached his free hand behind his head, his armored fingers grasping around the small port attached to the back of his helmet, removing the device and was greeted with yet another cold flush of nerves, and a much more empty head. He held the device in his palm, Indigo's hologram popping up from it the size of a small doll now.

"Any idea how I plug you into this thing?"

"Just press me against it, should do the trick."

Hans nodded and slid the "flash drive" forward on his hand with his thumb, grasping it with his other fingers and placing it flat across the alien terminal. With a light hum Indigo's hologram suddenly blipped onto the terminal's holographic display, a devious smile across her face.

"This place is much swankier than your head Petty Officer, though I suppose not as comfy."

"Hmpf, funny, now what have you got for me?"

"Give me a moment… The ships name roughly translates to The Divinity of Fire, and it seems I'm not alone in here, there seems to be a covenant A.I. installed on this ship."

"Awww, Indigo has a roommate." Jessie chuckled over the comms as he checked a nearby hallway.

Hans silently rolled his eyes and checked the sights on his weapon, "Is it a threat? Can you fight it?"

"Pffff, can I? This is me we're talking about Warrant Officer. You know how good I am at homewrecking, besides, the covenant A.I. is a bit distracted at the moment, it seems to be focussed on damage control, should give me plenty of time to...lock him...out of the system and into one of his own firewalls." Indigo clapped her hands with a smile "Bingo! It seems he's noticed me a bit too late, and while that firewall isn't a permanent prison, I have full control of the majority of the ship's systems now."

"Excellent work Indigo, now where's our objective?"

"Lets see… it seems the prophet is inside a specially designed safe room near the front of the ship, and well guarded to boot, uploading his coordinates and the ship schematics to your HUD."

Hans tilted his eyes down to the small map that appeared at the bottom right of his visor, replacing his motion sensor. "Alright Yellow Team, form up and let's get moving. Lydia, Marshall, you two are taking point on this one, Jessie has the rear, Vic, make your way to the hangar bay and clear the team an exfiltration route, Indigo will guide you there, if you encounter resistance too thick to handle, retreat and wait for the rest of the team to arrive once we grab the package, everyone stick to your comms, keep me updated at all times."

Victoria nods and shoulders her weapon, making her way over to a door panel only to slam her boot through its console, causing it to slowly slide open, turning back to the squad. "Wish me luck boys." And with that she disappeared from their view down the hall.

As the rest of the squad moved out at a speed walking pace with their rifles shouldered, they had encountered very little resistance in the way of covenant. Most of which being small groups of grunts wandering the ship aimlessly, which were quickly eliminated at the barrel of Lydia's shotgun. What was slowing them down the most were doorways and bulkheads, some of which could be quickly hacked open by Indigo who was traversing through the ship's systems, but some sported advanced firewalls that even she couldn't crack, leaving them to open them the old fashioned way of ripping them down. As Hans stood there, jamming his armored hands into the doorframe, the servos in his armor helping him rip the strange alien metal open as if it were wet tissue-paper. On the other side, dozens of covenant soldier lay dead on the floor, no visible injuries to speak of.

"You're about 2 kilometers from the Prophet's location, full guard included, from what I can tell they have no idea the ship's AI has been subdued, though that may not last forever. I've been leading the crew on wild goose chases throughout the hull, locking bulkheads, depressurizing sections like this one in front of you, shutting down fire fighting systems, and turning the Divinity's automated defense systems on its own crew, it's only a matter of time before they realize that something is amiss."

Jessie whistled with contentment as he lowered his weapon and turned over one of the Elites with his foot, its mandibled mouth covered in its own blood. "You certainly made short work of these ones."

Hans moved his hand to his helmets earpiece. "Mother Bee, repeat, this is Yellow Team, we are prepared to make contact with the package, permission to proceed?"

After a few moments the response came thick with static. " _I copy Yellow Team, this is Captain Alec Strieger of the UNSC Seventh Son, Lieutenant Perón is busy coordinating the Prowler detachment's mine deployment and has left me in charge of this operation in her absence, we have received minor reinforcement from UNSC destroyers Dragoon and Artemis, we'll buy you as much time as we can spartans, permission granted on package retrieval, complete the mission, but remember that your lives are more valuable, if no other options are available, waste the bastard. Steiger out."_

"Aye Captain, proceeding as planned to the target." Hans removed his hand from the long range comm button, "you heard the captain, Marshall, Jessie, you two are going in through the vents, give us the signal of when you're in position, Lydia, we're knocking on the front door."

Lydia smiled under her helmet, pointing her thumb over her shoulder at the pack strapped to her back, "I think I got the perfect housewarming gift."


	7. Chapter 7

_**Chapter 7**_

* * *

A few minutes later, within the prophet's safe room, the creature sat in its gravity defying chair, its frail body with its drooping neck sat silently as it faced a series of data screens, dressed in extensively ornate robes and flanked by 20 elite honor guards armed with ceremonial energy pikes. A lone elite dressed in golden armor knelt behind the prophet as he began to speak in the gruff and warbled voice of the elites.

" _The human vessel took us completely by surprise minister, we have been left completely disabled and unable to use any of our ships weapon systems, or to retreat into slipspace. I urge you holy one, please allow my crew to activate the Divinity's self destruct device so we can complete the great journey_."

The prophet interrupted him with a wave of its wrinkled little hand, turning around his anti gravity chair to face the elite, his chair floating well over the height of the average of an elite, giving the decrepit old alien a small bit of an imposing nature. " _Let us not be too hasty Shipmaster, the hierarchs have proclaimed that needlessly wasted lives will not be joining the rest on the path to absolution_."

" _I understand that minister, yet we cannot raise communications with the rest of the fleet, and our onboard AI has been unresponsive for almost an hour now, the humans have massed even more ships around us, now is our chance to self destruct and wipe away their heresy ourselves_."

" _My direct orders will not be swayed by your words Shipmaster 'Lodamee, now return to your duties and continue to attempt to raise communications with the fleet, or I will have you jettisoned into the abyss for heresy and treason, is that clear_?"

The shipmaster growled and rose to his feet. " _Your word is my command minister….may the forerunners guide us_."

" _That they shall, now leave me to my thoughts_."

As the shipmaster turned to leave, there was a commotion in the hallway outside of the sealed blast door leading into the safe room. A small muffled uproar could be heard, followed by the sound of covenant weapons and gunfire drowning out most of the voices. The shipmaster ran up to the door, hearing the sounds of shouting and gunfire outside he activated a communications device on his wrist armor.

" _Soldier, what's going on out there_?"

" _It's the humans…..they've boarded the carrier…..and the demons, they're here, we're being overru…_ "

His voice cut out as the muffled sound of a shotgun blast rang out on the other side of the door, followed by the sound of something large being slammed into the door, leaving a small dent. The shipmaster drew a pair of energy swords and activated them as he slowly backed away from the door. The honor guard dropped their ceremonial pikes, drawing a pair of plasma rifles each as 2 of them moved to shield the Minister. Hardly a moment passed before the doors were blown clean off their magnetic hinges. Hans and Lydia standing there with weapons shouldered. Hans let off a pair of three round bursts, tearing through the shields of one of the two honor guardsmen shielding the Minister, knocking them back dead into his anti gravity chair and knocking it over, sending the prophet crashing to the floor with his chair and the elites landing on top of him.

Hans and Lydia both quickly dashed behind the room's overarching pillars for cover as a hail of plasma rounds from the honor guardsmen kept them pinned down. Lydia stepping out of cover for a moment, sidearm draw and letting lose a few rounds at the elites before one of the stray plasma bolts struck her in the shoulder, the shot dispersing across her shields but forcing her back into cover to recharge them. Hans drew his magnum sidearm in his free hand, brandishing his rifle in the other as he activated his squad comm.

"Indigo, cut the lights!"

Indigo immediately shut off all lighting in the safe room, plunging it into total darkness. Hans then gave the signal to the rest of his squad to begin now that he and Lydia had gotten the guard's attention. With that both Jessie and Marshall dropped from the vents above, landing on either side of the raised platform the prophet and his guards stood. Hans and Lydia then stepped out of cover, their visors' night vision settings activated, and all four opened fire on the group. Hans methodically ripping three round bursts into his targets before snapping to another with machine-like efficiency. Lydia turning to deal with the shipmaster, thanks to the glowing blue light of his swords, Shipmaster 'Lodamee could still see the spartan. He thrusted forward one of his blades which Lydia expertly sidestepped before bringing her armored elbow down on the elite's forearm, snapping it like a wishbone before a boot to his chest sent him sprawling backwards. The shipmaster roared before charging forward and taking a wild downward swing at her, Lydia moved her arm and caught his wrist with her left hand, she gave him a crazy grin from under her amber visor as she squeezed, the servos in her gauntlet as well as her own augmented strength crumpled the armor around the elites wrist and crushing the bones in his hand to near powder, forcing him to drop his sword. Lydia then threw his arm to the side and followed with an uppercut to the shipmaster's mandibled jaw, lifting the 350 pound alien off its feet and onto the floor. She stepped over him, placing the barrel of her shotgun into the creature's mouth and pulled the trigger, sending purple blood spraying across the floor in an arch behind it, as she began slowly walking forward, firing her shotgun from the hip as she blasted down 2 more honor guards that were searching frantically through the darkness for her. At this point the honor guard had begun to recover from the surprise, focusing their fire at the point of Yellow team's muzzle flashes.

"Check your targets before you fire, we need the package alive" Hans spoke in a monotone voice as he judo threw an elite over his shoulder, drawing his sidearm and emptying a magazine into the alien's back. Turning back toward the platform just in time to spray down another elite with his battle rifle fired from the hip.

Jessie and Marshall both leaped up onto the prophet's platform, mowing down the majority of the elites still standing on the platform until Jessie's weapon was shot from his hands, the plasma melting his shotgun in half. Jessie dropped the back half, taking the front half and whipping it at the nearest elite, before ducking down and drawing his combat knife as he tackled one to the ground, slashing its throat as he tore his plasma rifle from its hands. Grasping the dead elite by its bleeding throat, Jessie lifted it up to use it as cover, firing the stolen weapon over the elite's shoulder, the plasma striking and searing the flesh of three more bodyguards.

As the fighting died down now, with Yellow Team now moving to comb through the bodies and finish off any survivors. Hans spoke up over the squad comm as he turning over an elite peppered with bullet holes with the muzzle of his rifle. "Indigo, get the lights back on, we need to get the package moving."

The purplish blue lights returned to operation as the squad continued searching through the bodies. Marshall searching up by the platform, rolling the bodies off the sides until he turned one over, cursing to himself silently as he drew his sidearm and pointed it down at something on the ground. "Hans, I found the package...but I'm pretty sure we broke it."

"Oh you have got to be kidding me, what happened?" Hans spoke as he climbed up onto the platform as Jessie and Lydia stayed behind to continue combing through the bodies. As they reached the top, he pointed his weapon as well at something on the floor. "Well shit, looks like he isn't walking." Below them the prophet cowered, his legs mangled and crushed under the weight of his broken anti-gravity chair and one of his dead guardsmen.

"This is Yellow Leader, come in Queen Bee, we have recovered the package, returning to hangar for exfil, how copy?"

" _This is Strieger, and drop the callsigns Yellow Leader, things are getting a bit tense on our end, we're running short on time. I'm sending a Pelican with some of my ODSTs onboard to get you out of there, see that their LZ is clear Petty Officer."_

"Aye Captain, returning to the LZ with the package."

Over the radio Hans could hear a sudden commotion on Captain Striegers end, a timid sounding voice shouting out to him. " _Captain Strieger, slipspace ruptures, two of them! It looks like vanguard forces, they're engaging us_!"

" _Karlsson, maneuver us into position to fire! Wilson, Pollard, arm the rest of our Shivas and scramble our fighters! Wright, get on the horn with the Dragoon and Artemis, tell them to retreat into the debris field to draw the enemy into the mines again!"_

Another staticky voice shouted in the background. " _Incoming plasma torpedo, brace for impact!"_

A rumble and crash could be heard on the other end of his long distance comm as Hans shouted into his end. "Captain Strieger! Captain are you there!?"

" _Son, please don't shout in my ear when I'm trying to think. The covvie bastards grazed us. But it was enough of an impact to throw me from my seat."_

" _Captain, we're suffered a few dozen hull breaches on our port decks, casualty reports are coming in slowly._ "

" _More losses….damn these alien bastards to hell. Yellow Team, you need to hurry, we won't be able to hold off the covenant for long. Iago, coordinate our fire with the destroyers, focus on the ship closest._ " The comm was cut off then by Strieger, with Hans standing there reholstering his sidearm.

"We need to double time it back to Victoria and make sure our way out is clear; Jessie, Lydia, you take the lead, Marshall, you're carrying our new friend."

"So be it then." Marshall slung his rifle over his shoulder, leaning down he tossed the chair and elite to the side like he was brushing aside toy blocks, grabbing the prophet around the throat as he tried to squirm away and pulling him up to eye level with him. Speaking to him in the electronic voice made by his helmet. "You're coming with me."


	8. Chapter 8

_**Chapter 8**_

* * *

Victoria lay flat against the hangar floor, her rifle in her hands as she silently watched the corridor in front of her as she used a dead grunt's head as a makeshift tripod. Her visor integrated with the reticule of her weapon sights as she watched silently, she knew that more elites were in the corridor in front of her with active camouflage activated. She silently peered down her rifle scope, searching for slight deformities in the air slowly panning her weapon from left to right facing down the hallway before she spotted a slight haze in the air about a hundred meters down the hallway. She tilted her weapon up slightly, her hand squeezing down on the trigger, a trio of rounds blasted out of the chamber and striking an unseen target, purple blood spurting out of thin air as the elite's active camouflage faded, collapsing to its knees and then onto its stomach, the blood gurgling from the three new holes in its head.

" _Victoria, this is Hans, we have the package, have you reached the hangar bay and secured our exit_?" Hans' voice crackled over her radio, his voice barely able to be heard over the static, she lifted her left arm from its location steadying her rifle, knocking on the side of her helmet.

"I read you Hans, I've arrived at the hangar but I've got stealth elites assaulting my position, I'm getting some serious interference on this end, this ship it's wreaking havoc on my radio."

" _It's the same on our end, but that doesn't matter, we need to hurry. The Vanguard of the covenant fleet has arrived and is fighting it out with the Taskforce as we speak, ODST's are enroute, they need a clean landing area, see what you can do, we should be there soon_."

"Please be quick about it, there's no way these elites haven't called for reinforceme…" Victoria interrupted herself as she set her rifle back into her shoulder and fired off another 4 bursts, spraying down another elite whose camouflage she was able to spot. "Just hurry alright, I'll try to keep the bay clear of aliens."

"Victoria, the covenant are massing 3 bulkheads ahead of you, I've sealed the blast doors between you and tried venting their atmo, but they seem to have caught onto my presence and are deploying countermeasures." Indigo blipped over her helmet earpiece, a worried tone in her voice.

"Is there anything else you can do to stall them?" Victoria asked as she drew a grenade from the strap on her armor's breastplate. Yanking out the pin as she held down the safety lever in her grip.

"I'll see what I can do, activating automated anti-personnel defense systems, should be able to thin the herd a bit." Victoria nodded to herself as she launched the grenade down the hallway, watching as the camouflaged elites all moved to try to escape the blast radius, only for a number of them to be cut down, with the survivors having revealed their positions, Victoria methodically shot them down one by one until the hallway was clear.

" _Yellow 5 this is Specter 309, incoming for pickup run, do I have a clear LZ_?" A new voice combining in her earpiece with Indigo, filling her head with noise as Victoria tried to concentrate as the sound of covenant weapons could be heard echoing through the door at the end of the hallway, most likely the aliens battling it out with the countermeasures Indigo had initiated.

"Specter 309 this is Yellow 5, the LZ is clear for now but I don't know how long it will stay that way, what's your ETA?" The door at the end of the hall finally was hacked open by the covenant forces, a horde of various, grunts, elites and jackals swarmed through the doorway on the other end of the hall about 300 meters long. Victoria began letting loose rounds into the crowd, picking off a number of aliens at range, only for them to be stepped over and replaced by one of their comrades who zealously charged down the hall, firing their weapons wildly in Victoria's direction as they ran.

" _Victoria this is Hans, we're almost there, had to retrieve Indigo from the ship's systems, she left a little surprise for the covenant._ "

" _Yellow 5 this is Specter 309 we're incoming to your location, the fighting between the taskforce and covenant reinforcements has slowed us down, had to take the long route through the debris field, we'll be there in approximately three mikes._ "

"I copy pilot, but I'm not sure we have that long. Covenant are swarming around the hangar bay, my motion detector is picking them up on all sides, the only thing holding them back is the bulkhead doors, and we have no idea how long they'll last!" She shouted over her mic as plasma bolts whizzed to her left and right. She began to stand up, continuing to fire her weapon, shooting the legs out from under an elite and expiring a pair of unwitting jackals. "Hans you better hurry the hell up or you won't be able to find much left of me!"

As the enemy forces advanced into closer range, she began tossing grenades into the crowd of monsters like they were candy, once realizing that not even 4 of her fragmentation grenades could kill enough to stop the horde, she retreated back to the doorway on the hangar's side, switching hands and continuing to attempt to suppress the mob by firing with her left hand as she jammed her fist into the door's console, ripping her armored fist back out of it, this time with a handful of wires, causing the door to slam shut as she began to hear the enemy pounding on the door. One of the Elites on the other side warbling, " _Bring up the Hunters!_ "

Victoria dashed back towards the center of the small hangar bay where a bunch of cargo containers could be used as cover, swapping in a new magazine as she ran. Sliding over a waist high container and using it as cover. The door to her left, towards the front of the ship was then opened, with the rest of Yellow Team sprinting through the doorway, with Marshall lagging behind as he dragged the prophet by his neck, the alien weakly struggling to try to pry away his steel grip, Hans at his side with his sidearm drawn, covering their back.

"Spartans, Indigo here, last I checked before you unplugged me, the covenant were converging on this hangar bay through multiple service hallways, I suppose they finally caught on."

"Welcome to the party guys, was wondering when you were gonna show up." Victoria jeered as the rest of the squad took up positions near her using the containers as cover.

"I'd like to think of it as fashionably late Vic, Marshall, give me the package."

As Marshall shoved the prophet into Hans' grasp, the covenant finally busted through the hangar doors thanks to the help of the Hunters with them. A dozen grunts leading the charge over the crushed doorway only to be mowed down by Yellow Team in a hail of bullets. Only more even more to charge through the breach, this time jackals with their shield gauntlets held high to defend the elites behind them, the team continued to suppress them only for a number of other doors to open up and for more covenant forces to charge in, surrounding them, yet none fired, with Hans standing in front of the team well visible by the alien troops, his magnum buried into the back of the prophet's wrinkled head, his other hand seized firmly onto the scruff of the old alien's neck.

"Anybody moves and he dies!" Hans shouted, taking the barrel from the back of the alien's head and firing three rounds into the floor right next to the prophet, and then placing the muzzle back on the prophet's head. Freezing the covenant forces in their tracks as the prophet waved his hands ordering them to stop. Both sides now standing there silently, weapons drawn and aimed at one another, with the spartans outnumbered by at the very least 500.

"Well….they haven't killed us but we're kinda stuck like this now, what are we supposed to do now Hans?" Lydia asked as she cocked forward the pump of her shotgun, causing a few of the grunts it was pointed at to flinch.

"We wait" Hans spoke through the comms so that only the squad could hear. Tilting his head to the left to look back towards the open hangar shield. "I hope you're armed Spectre 309, we've got the Target held hostage but I don't know how long we have till one of the covenant gets trigger happy."

" _Yellow Leader we cannot make an approach unless the hangar is clear of hostiles, this D77-TC can't maneuver in there, I'm sorry sir but._ " The Pelican pilot was suddenly interrupted on his side by a second voice. " _Get this goddamn Pelican inside that hangar Matthews, or so help me I will find someone who will_!"

The other end of the line was filled with some tense arguing followed by what sounded like a wet paper bag being slapped. Meanwhile the prophet began speaking to the covenant forces in their language, the Spartans unable to understand it but the tone seemed pretty clear, he was allowing them to open fire on them.

" _Roger Yellow Leader, entering the hangar in 5….4…..ready the nose cannon..2…..1, engaging retrogrades._ "

Jessie turned and watched as the Pelican came screaming in, its engines shutting down and switching to VTOL mode just before the ship passed through the atmospheric shield covering the hangar door, the now hover mode jet engines blasted into action, just barely compensating for the momentum and speed of them entering the hangar thanks to the help of the retrograde thrusters positioned on the nose of the gunship , causing Marshall to leap out of the way and behind cover to avoid being roasted by the jet exhaust that passed just next to him.

" _Yellow Team get your heads down, engaging_!"

Almost the moment after the pilot spoke the auto-cannon positioned under the nose of the gunship turned to its right and began firing, the high explosive shells sending the covenant forces close enough to its impacts flying, shredded by the shrapnel. Hans yanked the prophet with him as the two of them leaped back behind cover, the autocannon sweeping across the hangar in front of the team from right to left, the cannon's connection to the pilot's eyepiece ensuring almost perfect accuracy as it ripped through the hundreds of alien footsoldiers. The rest of Yellow Team all got low in their cover, the shell casings the size of soda cans and searing to the touch raining down on top of them, clattering against the floor.

" _Launching Anvils, it's about to get loud_!"

Both of the missile pods began firing as well, coating the room in a massive fireball as Hans pinned the prophet as close to the ground as he could get it. As the fire cleared, all that remained were a few scattered alien foot soldiers, and a pair of hunters who had been bracing behind their shields, massive arm mounted shields the size of concrete barriers that were already pocketed with shrapnel and the blood of their unfortunate comrades. The massive worms' hive mind bodies hunkering down as the autocannon turned back to them, only for a loud clang to sound, Hans looking up to see the barrell bright red, a shell jammed half way into the action, stopped by the deformed barrel.

" _Cannon's jammed! And the pods are spent_!"

" _Just turn this bird around_!"

The pelican's left thruster tilted back into flight position, spinning the pelican to the right, the two hunters and the few straggler aliens remaining all took advantage of the opportunity, beginning to fire their weapons at the unshielded vessel, their plasma weaponry burning small holes in the gunship's hull. The squad leaned up from their cover, attempting to clear the rest of the covenant and protect the pelican, but the Hunters' arm shields were completely deflecting any fire they put on them, though there were successful at killing the rest of the hostile stragglers, as well as gaining the Hunters' attention. The hunters growled in strange guttural noises, aiming fuel rod cannons at the squad.

"Hey! Earthworm Jim! Smile for the camera!" A voice called out from behind them, followed by a rocket that struck the alien directly in its arm mounted weapon, spewing its fuel all over itself as it roared in pain, bellowing as it held its shield in the air, the second rocket leaving a massive hole in the creature's chest. For a moment it looked as if the creature was unaffected, only for it to crashed to its armored knees and then flat to the floor with a massive metallic clang, its bond brother roared in anger but was only struck in the chest by a hail of bullets, the squad turned to see 6 ODSTs, one of which who looked like the leader due to their green stripe down the center of their helmet was holding a rocket launcher, both its barrels smoking, the others all spraying their rifles into the hunter, as well as one of the marines operating the Pelican's rear mounted machinegun.

"Yellow Team, focus fire on that final Hunter and take it down." Hans spoke as he rose for cover, aiming at the alien's exposed feet.

Say what you will about the intelligence of those creatures, but damn could they take a pounding and still survive, it took almost all of Yellow Team's remaining ammunition and a fair bit of help from the ODSTs on the Pelican to take the creature down, the damn thing was a bullet sponge, it and its shield. However, the shield was not enough to cover the entirety of its massive body, and eventually the hundreds of bullets that pierced through the massive creature's segmented armor began taking an effect. The creature giving off a deep groan before collapsing to the ground in a heap just a few meters from its bond brother.

Hans sighed deeply, the sound only heard by himself in his helmet as he shouldered his rifle, "Area clear, check the dead and get the package onto the Pelican on the double." He turned back to the ODSTs who were now dismounting off the back of the Pelican.

"Where do you even come up with half of these one-liners?" One of them asked the green striped officer.

"And who the hell is earthworm Jim?" Asked the other who had been manning the chaingun

"You ingrates don't watch enough classic vids, as uncultured as you are ugly." The officer spoke, voice thick with sarcasm, rocket launcher still smoking in their hand, her helmet speaker's voice distorting her vocal cords but did little to disguise her feminine voice as she unlatched her helmet, letting the braid down the back of her head fall, the tattoos on either side of her scalp covered in sweat.

"I'll drink to that ma'am."

"Oorah"

"Can the chatter and get to work you two, check the bodies, make sure they're dead." She turned back to Hans and gave him a little nod due to her saluting arm still holding the oversized weapon. "I'm Lieutenant Gabriels, and I'm gonna take a wild guess and say you're Yellow Team. I hear you brought the marines a new chew-toy."

"Good to meet you Lieutenant, and yes the prophet has been captured." Nods down toward the alien trying to crawl into a hiding spot between two of the cargo containers, only to be seized by a pair of the ODSTs and dragged back towards the Pelican which has now landed, its engines still on standby.

Jessie sauntered over, spinning the stolen alien weapon on his fingers like a giant metallic cowboy, vision pointed directly at Gabriels as Hans rolled his eyes silently under his visor, knowing exactly what he was up to.

"Thanks for the assist out there beautiful, I must say, those are some nice tattoos."

Gabriels looked him over, a bit of a dry look on her face. "Nice codpiece, does it come in adult sizes?"

"They do, but only in pink."

Gabriels snorted, holding back a bit of a chuckle. "And they say you Spartans are humorless."

"Have you met John?"

Hans watched as the pilot climbed out of the pelican, his hand nursing a broken nose as he circled around the Pelican, eyes scanning over the gunship. Hans turned back to him and placed his armored hand on his shoulder to get his attention. "Why did you land soldier? We need to leave before any more Covenant reinforcements arrive."

"We took some plasma fire in that entrance of ours, I need to make sure there's no hull breaches."

"With all due respect pilot we don't have the time for this, Indigo disabled this ship's reactor safeties and there are covenant reinforcements on the way who don't plan on letting us escape with their prophet, we need to get back to the taskforce before this ship goes nuclear or enemy reinforcements catch up."

Hans was interrupted by the scream of one of the ODSTs as he went sailing through the air, smashing back first into the wing of the pelican before slamming to the ground in a heap, the rest of the group turned just as one of the hunters everyone thought was dead moments ago proceeded to curb stomp the other ODST in the chest with a sickening crunch.

"Gabriels get your men back!" Hans shouted as he shouldered his rifle, firing as he attempted to get the behemoth of an alien's attention, and he most certainly did. The creature surprised him with it's newfound speed considering all the wounds it had already suffered, it has slipped his mind that the death of the hunter's bond brother had caused it to slip into a rage that gave it the strength to continue. It's speed he had not counted for and he was unable to move out of the way in time as the creature smashed him with the armored plate the alien used as a shield, decimating his suit's shields and sending him rolling across the floor, by the time the color returned to Hans' vision, the hunter was already on top of him, and using the tip of its shield, brought it down onto his chest with a force that severely dented the hangar floor Hans lay on.

For a while Hans couldn't see anything, his entire visor was covered when the force of the strike caused him to vomit blood. He tried to call out, but found that he could barely utter a croak, and as hard as he tried he couldn't breathe. He was in complete anguish as he lay there, what felt like every single one of his ribs had been shattered, even if he wasn't slightly indented into the hangar floor, he didn't plan on lifting his head to assess the damage as he knew it would only send a bigger tremor of pain through his body if he tried. He just lay there, furiously trying to draw in little bits of air as the gunshots continued around him, the fight he was still unable to see. After what seemed like an eternity to Hans, something came over and grabbed his head, attempting to remove his helmet, they finally figured out the release mechanism as the helmet was pulled off of him. Hans' face was covered in blood, his green eyes being the only distinguishing feature of him that could be seen.

"Don't you worry Spartan, we're safe, and we're getting you out of here." Gabriels voice called out as she turned back in the direction of the Pelican. "Someone help me move him! Damn suit weighs a ton!"

Hans tried to say something, only to violently cough up blood again, the pain rocking through his chest every time he tried to lift his arms to wipe the blood from his eyes. Gabriels tried to grab hold of him by his armpits and drag him to the pelican, but the attempt itself almost caused her to slip a disk. The armor Hans was wearing itself weighed around half a ton, not including the genetically modified grown adult inside of it, not to mention that the suit was still wedged into the floor. Suddenly a needler shot whizzed over her head, shattering on the floor behind her.

"Shit." She silently muttered to herself as she grabbed up her helmet off the floor, slipping it back onto her head as a new wave of covenant stormed onto the upper catwalk of the hangar. With her rocket launcher empty, she drew one of her caseless submachine guns from the holster strap on her hip, ripping a burst of fire at the catwalk, and spraying down a few of the grunts attempting to get an angle on them.

Gabriels looked around her, trying to assess the situation and get a grip on what was going on. Martinez and Schultz were both dead, that much she could tell from this distance, their bodies mangled horribly by the attack from that hunter. The body armor her ODSTs wore was tough, but there was no chance of it standing up to a hunter, but this spartan, this spartan might live. She looked back towards the pelican, the pilot was sitting on the boarding ramp, firing his sidearm wildly at the catwalks as his free hand pressed against his thigh where it looked like he had been hit.

She watched as the Spartan with the shotgun grabbed the pilot and Schultz, heaving both of them onto it's shoulders and bounding up the bay door of the pelican while the rest of her ODSTs remained, returning fire at the covenant. The smartass one with the alien weapon had already grabbed Martinez. And another was running right up to her, firing as they moved.

"Is he alright!?" The spartan spoke, her voice deepened and distorted by her helmet, but feminine.

"He's still breathing, but I cant move him, armor's wedged into the deck." Gabriels stopped as a few plasma shots landed a little too close for comfort, causing both her and the spartan to raise their weapons and return fire for a few moments.

"I'll handle the heavy lifting Lieutenant, I need you to cover me."

With that, the Spartan holstered her weapon and shoved her hand into the metal floor of the alien hangar, to Gabriel's amazement she tore back the deck that was trapping Hans like she was peeling a banana, lifting the massive Spartan onto her shoulders, holding his helmet in her other hand. Together the two of them retreated back to the pelican and the rest of their comrades, all the while Gabriels providing the Spartans covering fire.

"Someone spin up the engines, I'll keep us covered." Gabriels shouted as she stood as she fired off the last of the rounds in her submachine gun before dropping it to the floor and getting on the pelican's chaingun, clearing the chamber before opening fire on the covenant that were now swarming their position. She continued to hold her ground as she felt the rumble of the pelican's thrusters begin to spin up, suddenly she saw something flash past the peripheral of her visor and hit the hangar floor just in front of her with a clang. Gabriels looked down, just in time to see the plasma grenade activate, its light enveloping her entire visor, followed by an explosion that lifted her off the ground like she was a feather, in a spit second she was flying, followed by an impact on the back of her head, and then nothing.


	9. Chapter 9

_**Chapter 9**_

* * *

"The Lieutenant's down!" One of the ODSTs shouted as the pelican finally lifted off the hangar floor.

Victoria came over tossing the crumpled remains of the chaingun off of her and dragging her away from the bay doors as they closed. Her armored torso was deformed from the heat and steaming, chunks of shrapnel from the chain gun lodged into her chest armor and helmet, a massive crack in her visor revealing part of her face, a trickle of blood coming from the top of her forehead. Victoria handed her to the ODSTs who quickly lifted her up and strapped her into one of the troop bay seats, removing her helmet as one of them moved to find the source of the blood.

They had succeeded in their mission, Victoria thought to herself as she turned to the other side of the pelican, the prophet quietly sat, strapped and locked into one of the harnesses, ODSTs sitting on either side of him with their weapons loaded. She should be happy about this but... She looked around her, watching as the two of the ODSTs were gently slipped into metallic-sheen body bags, at Jessie and Marshall as they stood over Hans, attempting to comfort him as he still wheezed and coughed, trying his hardest to keep breathing, at the Lieutenant sitting slumped over in her harness and at the pilot as he bit down on the collar of his uniform as another one of the ODSTs pulled a needler crystal shard out of his thigh. This didn't feel like much of a success, Victoria thought as she walked past the scene in the troop bay, making her way to the cockpit chamber.

As she entered the cockpit, she found Lydia sitting at the controls, she turned as she entered and silently nodded, words weren't necessary, she could tell she was probably feeling the same as her. As Victoria watched through the pelican's viewport, she could see the battle in the distance. She was quite amazed, whoever this "Captain Strieger" was, he sure knew what he was doing, since Yellow Team had been inside the Covenant Carrier, 10 covenant vessels had entered the system, 8 of which were currently disabled or otherwise not engaging, though it seemed this man's magic couldn't last forever, of the 2 destroyers that had arrived to assist the taskforce in this mission, one was drifting through the wreckage field, burning, it's MAC cannon had been hit straight on by a energy projector, ripping through the ships belt armor and splintering it's hull. The white name painted on the side reading _Artemis_ only visible due to the internal deck fires. The other destroyer as well as the Seventh Son had both suffered some serious surface damage and were currently retreating deeper into the wreckage field for cover as the two covenant ships remaining pursued. Looking around, it looks like none of the Prowlers had been destroyed, and were probably hiding in cloak within the field.

Victoria leaned against the wall, her magnetized boots making sitting down at the moment unnecessary as she pressed her earpiece. "This is Spartan Yellow Team, come in Mother Bee."

"This is Captain Strieger, what did I tell you about the codenames Warrant Officer."

"This is Victoria-099 sir."

"What happened to Yellow Leader?"

"Yellow Leader...Hans-041 was critically wounded during our exfil, both our pilot and the Lieutenant were both hit as well, and two ODSTs were killed Captain, but the prophet is in our hands...mission successful sir."

There was a brief silence on the other end of the comm, Victoria could faintly hear a very deep sigh coming from the Captain's end

"Congratulations soldier, I know this might not feel like much of a victory, we've spent many lives today in an attempt to capture one, but if this alien holds the information we need, it might go a long way in bringing meaning to their deaths. Now return to the Son, our slipspace drive is primed and we'll get the hell out of here as soon as you land, take care of your squadmates Spartan, and please, give them my regards, Strieger out."

"Yes sir." Victoria cracked a small smile as she turned back to Lydia, who was also listening in through the squad comm.

"That turkey necked piece of shit better have what we need Tori, or I'll thrown it out the airlock myself." Lydia spoke coldly as her face remained forward.

"Relax Lydia, Hans is gonna be alright, all you have to do is get us back to the cruiser."

Lydia looked down for a moment, her facial expression hidden by her visor "I...I know I'm just worried...is all. I'll get us there, safe and sound, just go make sure he's alright, for me ok?"

"He'll be in good hands Lydia, I promise." She patted her on the shoulder and walked back into the troop bay, the door sealing itself shut behind her.

Lydia swiftly guided the ship through the debris field, silently veering through the wreckage as they approached the Seventh Son's port side hangar bay.

"How's he doing doc?" Victoria heard Jessie ask as she returned to the rest of the crew inside the troop bay, an shaved headed ODST with a medic's cross on his breastplate silently looked him over.

"There's not much I can do at the moment Spartan." The medic removed his armored gloves and began pulling on a pair of latex ones. "Judging by the depth of the indent, we can expect at least 5 shattered ribs, ruptured diaphragm, and with all the blood, massive internal bleeding. To be honest I'm not sure human anatomy applies to you Spartans, with all this blood loss he should be going through hypovolemic shock, but not only is he still breathing, he's still conscious. Unfortunately, I'm a doctor not an engineer, I have no idea how to get this suit off of him, and with how damaged it is it not sure they'd be able to get it off either, we need to get him back to the Son before we can operate on him."

"We're on approach to the hangar bay, prisoner transfer and medical teams should be ready and waiting for us." Lydia's voice came over the pelican's internal intercom.

"This is Spectre 309, now entering port side main hangar bay, how copy control?" Lydia spoke, looking at the air traffic control station inside the hangar

 _"Your landing is open, advised that the pelican deck is crowded at the moment, careful on approach Spectre 309, welcome home."_

The Pelican carefully entered inside of the hangar bay, easing to a soft landing, a matter of moments after they landed, the _Seventh Son_ launched into slipstream space. The rest of the hangar was filled to the brim with people, the Son's medical crew had assembled a full triage center on the hangar floor, hundreds of quick assembled cots held wounded crewmen and marines, with even more shuffling into the hangar and flooding the area, with the Son's doctors frantically trying to attend to them all. There were other crew members with welding torches, attempting to pry open a number of escape pods that were also resting inside the hangar, probably belonging to the _Artemis_.

Lydia watched as they managed to pry one of them open, a few men diving in and dragging out a number of crew members, their faces purple from near asphyxiation, other crews weren't so lucky, tearing open the pods, only for the lead man to look in and shake their heads before slowly climbing inside.

Yellow Team and the rest of the ODSTs gathered up the wounded and the dead as the Pelican's rear door opened, standing there waiting for them was Captain Strieger, his left arm in a sling, as well as Lieutenant Colonel Miles and a squad of MPs. Yellow Team and the ODSTs stood and saluted in the middle of the hangar bay, surrounded on all sides by the chaos of the triage.

"Welcome back Yellow Team, so this is our new guest?" Strieger spoke as he looked toward the prophet who was standing behind them, an ODST vice gripped around its arms, they handed him off to the MPs who quickly slapped a pair of shackles around its wrists. Strieger placed his hand on the shoulder of the MP sergeant to speak to him. "Toss him in the brig in one of the extra uncomfortable cells, once we exit slipspace, inform Petty Officer Perón that the package has been secured, we'll transfer him to her ship for interrogation once we shake any trace of a tail by the covenant." The MP sergeant nodded and gave a small salute before they dragged the prophet off to the cells.

"When the Artemis was destroyed, we tried to evacuate as many members of its crew as we could, in total, we saved about 400 men, Captain Fasano unfortunately decided to go down with his ship, but not before activating the Cole protocol. Lets hope this mission bears fruit, a lot of good men and women have died today."

Victoria silently nodded, handing off the wounded and the men in body bags to the marines, Miles personally taking Gabriels from Marshall's arms and placing her onto a stretcher.

"She fought well Colonel." Marshall suddenly spoke, as quiet and to the point as ever.

"She was the first one to Hans' side after he was hit, and she covered the unit personally as we made our evac." Jessie added, a bit more humble than his usual self.

"I appreciate your concerns and kind words Spartans, but I'm afraid it's unnecessary, you can all tell her it yourselves later. There's a reason the Lieutenant is my XO, Carrie's way too stubborn to die."

Yellow Team chuckled as the rest of the ODSTs shuffled off, helping carry Hans onto an industrial stretcher and bring him to the med bay, a team of engineers following briskly behind them. With Strieger staying for a while to try to comfort his men a bit, before returning to the bridge deck.


End file.
